Vehicles stranded in deep floodwaters across multiple North Carolina towns

AccuWeather

Storm chaser Aaron Jayjack reported live from the scene of severe flooding in southern North Carolina on Sept. 16 as a tropical rainstorm continued bringing heavy rain across the state.

Transcript

00:00We're going to check in right now with storm chaser Aaron J. Jackett.

00:03Aaron, we were live with you this afternoon and it was one of those events where again just kind

00:09of interpreting it as it unfolds before you and you're doing a job you're reporting live on the

00:15AccuWeather network when a car drove through flooded water and the driver had to be rescued.

00:19Thankfully nobody was hurt but what was this like here? Yeah it's been a wild day here in

00:27southeastern North Carolina specifically for me here in Southport but not just here but in Oak

00:33Island and Carolina Beach. Also significant impacts from flash flooding as a rain band set

00:39up from potential tropical cyclone that moved on shore this afternoon and yes I was live with

00:46AccuWeather trying to report on the storm itself. You know I had a shot of this river lots of

00:52rivers and creeks around here over their banks and one particular one there was a bridge and a

00:56car attempted to drive through the floodwaters. Now I had seen a you know a dozen maybe two dozen

01:01cars before that drive over this very same bridge but finally I guess you know the river underneath

01:08had washed out the dirt and caused this bridge to collapse when this vehicle tried to drive across

01:13through the floodwater so that just shows you the dangers of trying to drive through floodwaters.

01:17You never know what's going on underneath those waters and in this case a car fell through but

01:21fortunately the driver of the vehicle was okay. He suffered minor injuries. I think it was due to

01:27the glass as we had to break out the glass in the window for him to be able to get out but

01:31a very significant flash flooding here today in North Carolina that continues to flood right now.

01:37You've still got floods back behind me right now. Cars have been trapped stalled out in the water

01:42and the scenes like this are I'm seeing scenes like this all over Southport area. I'm just a

01:47little bit north of Southport right now but continues the waters continue to flow over roads

01:52and are slowly receding. I talked to some guys that were driving a four-wheeler and they had a

01:57pipe on their their four-wheeler so that it didn't stall and the water is actually made for going

02:01through water and he says the water had dropped about six inches since he was out here earlier

02:06today. Aaron I know that you're very coastal here but it seems that most of this rainwater you're

02:11saying and the floodwater was from rain as opposed to a storm surge. Do you think that's accurate?

02:17Yeah that's that's 100% accurate. You know we were getting four five six inches of rain per hour as

02:24that rain band set over this area for about a half an hour to 45 minutes before it moved a little bit

02:29to the west closer to Myrtle Beach that area Oak Island specifically. I think it parked right over

02:35Oak Island and then it swung back through this area back to the east and came over Southport

02:41once again dropping more rain. I think we probably got you know at least a foot of rain here probably

02:46closer pushing 14 inches of rain and you know it's a it's a unique experience. This is a rare

02:52flood. You know I was here in North Carolina for Florence in 2018. Bad flooding for Florence but

02:59that was more widespread. This is very isolated. It almost reminds me of covering a tornado damage

03:05path after the fact doing the reports on that whereas the impacts are significant but isolated

03:12here in Southport you know it's we didn't have the wind with the storm really there was wind but the

03:16wind wasn't the problem here today it was the rains and the flash flooding. All right and Aaron I know

03:21you've been out and about you've seen a lot of stuff today. If you were to estimate the number

03:24of cars that you have seen in water in a state where they either were not drivable or somebody

03:29had to get rescued how many do you think you've seen? Dozens. Every uh low water crossing that

03:35I've come across has been at least a couple of vehicles that are stalled out. You know there's

03:40there's dozens and I've only seen a small area here Southport. I can't even uh I'm trying to

03:44actually make my way out of Southport now I was going to track the the rain uh to the north northeast

03:49in the Fayetteville area uh but trying to get through these floodwaters uh it's a little bit

03:53difficult but you know and I've only seen one of you know a fraction of the Southport area and I've

03:58seen dozens of vehicles stalled out. That's pretty wild and it looks like somebody's driving a four

04:02wheeler. I was trying to tell her maybe there was a uh a wave runner in that last bit of video.

04:06Thank you for that report there uh in Bolivia, North Carolina right now as Aaron J. Jackson

04:11is still in a very waterlogged area uh within what a few dozen miles of Cape Fear. Thanks again, Aaron.

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