Hurricane Florence live updates: Death toll reaches eight in Carolinas as danger from flash flooding soars
Officials say the most dangerous part of the storm could be yet to come
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Eight people, including a mother and her infant child, have died in the Carolinas from the deadly effects of Hurricane Florence.
The powerful storm flattened trees, buckled buildings and knocked out power to nearly 930,000 homes and businesses as it battered the southeast coast of the US.
It made landfall on Friday with a life-threatening storm surge pushing water inland for miles and more than 60 people had to be pulled from a collapsing motel.
Nearly 400 people had to be rescued from their flooded homes in New Bern, North Carolina, after they decided to try and see out the wind and rain.
Governor Roy Cooper called Florence an "uninvited brute" that could wipe out entire communities as it grinds its way across land.
"The fact is this storm is deadly and we know we are days away from an ending," he said.
Florence was downgraded to a tropical storm with winds of 60 mph (95 kph) as it slowly moved west.
The first known deaths related to the storm were a mother and her infant child who were killed when a tree fell on their house in Wilmington, North Carolina.
In Lenoir County a 78-year-old man was electrocuted and a 77-year-old man was found dead after he went outside to check on his dogs.
A woman also died of a suspected heart attack in Pender county. Although it was not directly related to Florence, emergency services were blocked from attending by storm damage. On Saturday, a further three deaths were confirmed. According to Duplin County Sherriff Blake Wallace, two of the deaths happened outside of Kenansville, while the third happened in Kornegay.
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Experts had warned the effects of the hurricane could be devastating.
“This is a horrific nightmare storm from a meteorological perspective,” University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd said. “We’ve just never seen anything like this. This is just a strange bird.”
The Duke Energy company estimated that between 1 million and 3 million homes could be without power in the wake of the hurricane.
Hurricane Florence hits the US East Coast
Show all 20Donald Trump issued a stark warning on Twitter on Wednesday, telling Americans to evacuate and not to “play games with” Florence. “It’s a big one, maybe as big as they’ve seen, and tremendous amounts of water,” he added in a video posted to Twitter.
He claimed federal authorities were “fully prepared” for the hurricane, saying: “The storm will come, it will go, we want everybody to be safe. We’re fully prepared, food, medical, everything you can imagine, we are ready.
“But despite that, bad things can happen when you’re talking about a storm this size. It’s called Mother Nature, you never know. But we know, we love you all, we want you safe, get out of the storm’s way, listen to your local representatives.”
It came just days after an official report criticised the US government’s handling of the response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, the US territory where some 3,000 people were killed last autumn.
A local in Morehead City, North Carolina, has posted footage of the beginning of a storm surge there.
A chilling update from the Twitter account of the City of New Bern, in North Carolina.
You'll want your headphones on for this footage, filmed on the North Carolina coast.
BREAKING: The National Hurricane Center says the eye wall of Hurricane Florence is beginning to reach the North Carolina coast.
The reality for families caught up in Hurricane Florence:
More than 80,000 people were already without power in North Carolina on Thursday night as the storm began buffeting the coast, AP reports, and more than 12,000 were in shelters.
Another 400 people were in shelters in Virginia, where forecasts were less dire.
Here's a map of the counties in North Carolina suffering the worst power outages.
Footage from another town in North Carolina, this time Belhaven, which sits on the Pungo River.
A list of wind speeds recorded across different counties in North Carolina, as provided by weather forecaster Peter Hall.
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