CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) — A woman was killed when floodwaters from the remnants of Tropical Storm Chantal swept her car from a rural road and dozens of people were forced to flee their homes by floodwaters, officials in North Carolina said Monday.
Parts of central North Carolina experienced hazardous conditions overnight including 3 to 8 inches (about 8 to 20 centimeters) of rain and possible tornadoes, according to North Carolina Emergency Management. Multiple swift water rescues were conducted in Alamance, Orange, Chatham and Durham counties overnight and several areas have declared local states of emergency, officials said. About 120 roads were closed Monday across the state, but several major roads had reopened, including parts of Interstate 40 and 85 in Alamance County, according to Gov. Josh Stein’s office.
An 83-year-old Pittsboro woman was killed when her car was swept off a rural Chatham County road by floodwaters on Sunday night, according to the North Carolina State Highway Patrol. Responding troopers found the submerged vehicle about 100 feet (about 31 meters) from the road and the woman was found dead inside, officials said.
The Chapel Hill Fire Department and neighboring agencies completed more than 50 water rescues, many of them in areas where floodwaters entered or threatened to enter apartments, officials said. More than 60 people were displaced Sunday and Monday. There were no reports of injuries as of Monday morning. After helping with rescues in Chapel Hill, the Durham Fire Department said in a social media post that its crews performed more than 80 more rescues in the Old Farm area of Durham.
Floodwaters inundated Chapel Hill's Eastgate Crossings shopping center, where the red-framed glass doors of a Talbots store were blown in and debris-specked white mannequins littered the floor. Next door, at the Great Outdoor Provision Co., manager Chad Pickens said kayaks ended up 30 feet from where they had been on display and shelves in the shoe room were toppled like dominoes.
What happened there pales in comparison to the floods in Texas, he said.
“The bottom line is these are just things, and while it hurts to lose things, it’s a lot different to losing people,” Pickens said.
A large brown dumpster had smashed into the outdoor dining area of a Shake Shack in the shopping center. The windows were blown out and chairs and cups were strewn everywhere.
Hua Jiang said he put in an order at the Shake Shack around 8:45 p.m. Sunday and about 10 minutes later, water started flowing through the doors. After about five minutes, employees said they should make a run for it, he said. Jiang’s Toyota RAV4 was already flooded in the parking lot, so he went to a Chipotle that was on higher ground.
“It’s unfortunate, but that’s life,” Jiang said, wiping sweat from his brow on Monday morning.
In Chatham County, authorities were searching Monday for two canoers who went missing during the storm, according to a county sheriff’s office news release. They were last seen launching their canoe on Jordan Lake late Sunday afternoon and their canoe was recovered Sunday night, authorities said.
The Eno River crested early Monday at Durham at 25.63 feet (7.81 meters), surpassing the previous record of 23.6 feet (7.19 meters), according to the National Water Prediction Service’s website.
The Haw River crested early Monday at 32.5 feet (9.91 meters), the second highest river stage ever recorded at the Town of Haw River. That level was only eclipsed by Hurricane Fran in 1996 when the stage reached 32.83 feet (10.01 meters), according to a post from the National Weather Service’s Raleigh office.
More than 22,000 customers were without power on Monday afternoon, according to poweroutage.us.
Chantal was expected to continue northeast through mid-Atlantic states Monday as a tropical depression before brushing the southern New England coast Monday night into Tuesday morning, according to the Weather Prediction Center.
Tropical Storm Chantal was downgraded to a depression Sunday after making landfall near Litchfield Beach, South Carolina, early Sunday, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
By late morning Monday, the storm was about 30 miles (50 kilometers) north-northeast of Newport News, Virginia, with maximum sustained winds of 40 mph (45 kph). It was moving northeast at about 17 mph (28 kph).
Flood watches were in effect for parts of eastern Virginia, southern and eastern Maryland, Delaware, southern New Jersey and southeastern Pennsylvania. Forecasters warned of dangerous surf and rip currents at beaches from northeastern Florida to the mid-Atlantic states for the next couple of days.
Allen G. Breed, The Associated Press
