Mr. Burdette, who grew up in Wilmington, said Florence is likely to eclipse flood records set by Hurricane Floyd in 1999 and Hurricane Matthew in 2016. He said recent hurricanes have been influenced, to a certain extent, by climate change, adding that more than three-quarters of the floods in downtown Wilmington over the past 60 years have come during the past decade.
Late Tuesday morning, as residents along the length of the Cape Fear River took stock of the damage and debated whether to leave before the flooding would get worse, a bright orange Coast Guard helicopter circled a nearby neighborhood in Rocky Point, N.C., and descended into a field.
“Yay, they landed!” someone said, and children and families started running. For days, this community of modest homes by a wildlife reserve had watched helicopters pass overhead, hoping that one might stop to bring supplies. This one had arrived to pick up several families with young children whose homes were in danger of flooding.
Residents of this inland community bordering the Northeast Cape Fear River said they had not been told at first to leave. “By the time they said to evacuate there was no gas,” said Danielle Carr, 27.
Now, there was no exit, every route blocked by water. “You can maybe drive a total of five miles on this island,” her father, John Dixon, 67, said.
The helicopter crew’s previous mission had been to pick up a sick child from another now-isolated community, Burgaw, and ferry him to an ambulance in Wilmington. On Tuesday afternoon, according to the North Carolina Department of Transportation, there was no longer a safe way in or out of Wilmington.
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