Monday, 17/09/2018 22:52 (GMT+7)
Hurricane Florence made landfall in the eastern United States, killing at least 13 people on September 15th.
(Photo: Reuters)
Florence crashed ashore in North Carolina as a Category 1 hurricane, and it has wiped out power to about 796,000 customers in that state and South Carolina.
It has trapped people in flooded homes, with citizen swift-water rescue teams from out of state joining local emergency professionals to try to bring them to safety.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said that despite the downgrade, Florence was still "unloading epic amounts of rainfall" and still very capable of wiping out entire communities.
"The flood danger from this storm is more immediate today than when it made landfall," he said. "We face walls of water at our coast, along our rivers, across farmland, in our cities and in our towns."
The Hurricane was downgraded to a tropical depression at about 5 a.m. local time on Sunday (September 16th).
Earlier, the US authorities ordered up to 1.5 million people to evacuate their homes along the coasts of Virginia, North and South Carolina ahead of Hurricane Florence, then a powerful Category 4 storm packing winds of 220 kilometres per hour bearing down on the East Coast of the United States.
"This is one of the worst storms to hit the east coast in many years," President Donald Trump warned on Twitter. "Please be prepared, be careful and be SAFE!"
The President said: "The safety of American people is my absolute highest priority. We are totally prepared. We are ready. We’re as ready as anybody’s ever been.”/.
Compiled by BTA