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Official Describes Hurricane Florence Rescue Efforts In Hard-Hit New Bern, North Carolina

Rescue workers from the Township No. 7 Fire Department and volunteers from the Civilian Crisis Response Team use a truck to move people rescued from their flooded homes during Hurricane Florence on Sept. 14, 2018 in James City, N.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Rescue workers from the Township No. 7 Fire Department and volunteers from the Civilian Crisis Response Team use a truck to move people rescued from their flooded homes during Hurricane Florence on Sept. 14, 2018 in James City, N.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

As Hurricane Florence slams North Carolina, the riverfront city of New Bern is already feeling the impacts. Emergency crews are attempting to respond to more than a hundred calls for rescues.

Amber Parker, spokesperson for Craven County, North Carolina, tells Here & Now‘s Jeremy Hobson that officials are happy to have daylight on their side Friday.

“What we’re seeing … of course we have floods, storm surge, wind,” Parker says. “It was a little dark there for several hours to where it made rescue operations much more difficult.”

Some of the city’s roads are passable, but many remain impassable due to high water levels. The county has five swift water rescue teams out to answer calls for help, alongside citizen volunteers with the Louisiana Cajun Navy.

“We have people trapped by the storm surge and flooding waters getting to the steps of their house,” Parker says. “We’ve had it reported to where it’s over mailboxes, to the stairs of homes, even at first, second floors to where people are having to get on their roofs.”

Parker says that while she’s holding up OK so far, she worries about her friends and others in the community, and about how Florence might impact her home.

“This is my third hurricane that I have worked, my second one with Craven County,” she says. “Of course, I live in New Bern, I’m a property owner here, I have friends that live here and have property here, work here, and it’s devastating to see our beautiful community and parts of it underwater, and to even worry about my own home. I don’t know what the status of it is.”

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.