Storm ‘Firehose’ hits North Carolina and scientists see climate change

The Carolinas earlier this week braced for a storm that forecasters warned could bring heavy rain — as much as 6 to 8 inches in some places. But one narrow strip received a “firestorm” that dumped up to 20 inches in a so-called 1,000-year flood that shocked many with its intensity.

The storm that left homes flooded, cars submerged and schools closed in parts of North Carolina on Tuesday wasn’t really a surprise to scientists who have long said such rainfall is a sign of climate change.

“The data show that one of the strongest relationships between climate change and precipitation is that as the atmosphere warms, its ability to hold water increases. So we’re seeing more intense rain over a shorter period of time,” said Andrew Kruczkiewicz, a senior researcher at the Columbia Climate School at Columbia University.

Monday’s deluge was centered on Carolina Beach, south of Wilmington, where more than 18 inches (46 centimeters) of rain fell in 12 hours and nearly 21 in total. That much rain qualifies as a 1,000-year flood, expected only once this time, forecasters at the National Weather Service office in Wilmington said.

Some areas were hit particularly hard as the storm took a narrow path across the region, “causing a bit of a tornado effect,” NWS meteorologist Lauren Warner said. The agency’s projections allowed for “higher local” amounts, but those were nowhere near what ultimately came down.

“If it had moved a little bit to the left or continued to the left, that would have mitigated some of the totals that we’ve seen or maybe spread them out over a wider area,” Warner said. The worst flooding occurred in just two counties, her colleague Tim Armstrong said.

Ocean Isle Beach, just over 30 miles (48 kilometers) from Carolina Beach, received less than 4 inches (10 centimeters) of rain.

Carolina Beach Mayor Lynn Barbee said the 8 inches that fell on his city was impossible to fully prepare for even in a place accustomed to tropical rains.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen it rain so hard and for so long,” said Barbee, who has lived on the coast most of his life. “Not bands of rain that strengthen and drop aloft or a front that moves. He just sat on top of us.”

The storm system was known as Potential Tropical Cyclone No. 8, but never organized enough to become the eighth named tropical storm of the season.

The lack of a name added to the difficulty, Barbee said, because people pay more attention to named storms or hurricanes. Tourists were still arriving for beach holidays on Monday at the height of the flood. A family in Pennsylvania lost their pickup truck to flood waters and is in a shelter instead of their vacation rental, the mayor said.

“We have developed a communication dialogue. We report cones of uncertainty, expected path, time of arrival, strength on the Saffer-Simpson scale. People know what to expect. But all of a sudden we have storms that don’t fit on these scales,” Barbee said.

Carolina Beach is still cleaning up, and the mayor expects things to be back to normal by the weekend. But city officials will continue to try to figure out how to plan for the heavy rains, just as they plan for 18 inches of water to come in from the ocean during a hurricane’s storm surge.

“A foot and a half that falls from the sky and not from the ocean – where does it go?” Barbee said. “We find it in neighborhoods that have never been flooded. It is falling water and not rising water.”

Flash flooding closed dozens of roads in Brunswick County, at the southeastern tip of North Carolina, including US Highway 17, which is the main coastal route. Floodwaters inundated the highway at several points for most of the day, trapping some drivers on high ground that became an island.

Emergency workers brought food and water to people as they waited for the waters to recede, Brunswick County emergency officials said. No deaths were reported, but dozens of roads in the county were damaged and many were washed out.

Gov. Roy Cooper signed an executive order Tuesday declaring a state of emergency for Brunswick and three other southeastern counties, which the governor said will make additional assistance available to the region.

It was not the first historic flood in the region, by any means. The same area has seen four other lifetime floods in the past 25 years from Hurricane Floyd in 1999, unnamed storms in 2010 and 2015, and the landmark flood of 30 inches of rain from Hurricane Florence in 2018.

Rain from the system moved into southeastern Virginia on Tuesday. Along North Carolina’s Outer Banks, the storm closed the vulnerable North Carolina Coastal Highway 12 on Ocracoke Island and threatened several homes in Rodanthe, where erosion and sea level rise have destroyed more than half a dozen beach houses this decade.

The Atlantic hurricane season continues through the end of November.

In an updated hurricane forecast last month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration still predicted an extremely active season thanks to near-record sea surface temperatures and the possibility of La Nina. Emergency management officials urged people to be prepared.

Elsewhere in the Atlantic, Gordon remained a tropical depression as it churned through open ocean waters. Gordon could either dissolve in the coming days or strengthen back into a tropical storm, forecasters said.

Photo: A firefighter helped a dog to safety in flood waters at Kure Beach. (Wilmington Fire Department via AP)

AP writer Isabella O’Malley co-authored this report.

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