The storm, hovering off the coast, wasn’t supposed to be this bad. It wasn’t even strong enough for the National Hurricane Center to give it a name, and Sunday night some local officials decided it was safe enough to send students to school.
But only a few hours into Monday, it quickly became apparent that this wasn’t just a typical unnamed summer weather system. Floodwaters washed away roads, surged into homes, stranded driver for hours, and prompted water rescues in several communities in New Hanover and Brunswick counties.
Jamie Johnson, who lives in Carolina Beach and owns Coharie Coastal Boutique on North Lake Boulevard, said she’s never seen flooding of the kind that swamped the town Monday.
“None of us have,” Johnson said. “We were in the streets looking at each other like, ‘What the heck is going on?'”
Rainfall of more than 18 inches in a single day was reported in parts of Carolina Beach, a once-in-1,000-year rainfall event, according to the National Weather Service’s Wilmington office. The result was flooded homes and businesses and dozens of emergency calls for help from stranded residents and motorists.
Across the Cape Fear River, raging floodwaters washed away roads and bridges around Southport, isolating the Brunswick County coastal town. A few miles north, flooding left U.S. 17 − the county’s main east-west artery − and other roads in central parts of the county impassable, stranding hundreds of motorists for hours.
Pleasure Island in New Hanover County, home to Carolina Beach and Kure Beach, saw some of the region’s worst flooding.
