Roughly 48 hours after southeastern North Carolina was battered by high winds and 1.5 feet of rain , Governor Roy Cooper joined state officials to survey the damage around Brunswick and New Hanover counties.
On Wednesday, state officials confirmed that Monday’s storm turned deadly when an 80-year old man drove into floodwaters near the town of Supply, ultimately drowning. They said upwards of 60 roads across 12 counties remain closed and there are still residents who aren’t able to navigate out of their communities.
“When you’ve got weather people saying this was a 1 in 1,000 year event, that is extraordinary,” Cooper said during a news conference at the Southport Fire Station.
They’re calling this a 200-year flood with over a foot of rain falling in 12 hours.
The Governor surveyed the damage left behind by this week’s storm, from the air and the ground. He said there was no comparison he could draw to the flooding he saw.
“This storm essentially formed right over Brunswick County here and like a firehose dumped this water on them,” Cooper said. “It is something that I certainly have never seen before.”