[Hala Gorani, Cnn International:] We are getting you up to speed on two major international news stories this hour. Hello and welcome, everyone. I'm Hala Gorani. Hurricane Florence is hammering the coast of North and South Carolina. Take a look at the video on the screen shot at a marina at Wilmington. And further inland, the massive storm is trapping people in homes, flooding entire towns and threatening more devastation. But this hour, we are also tracking another huge storm. This one heading for the Philippines. It is super typhoon Mangkhut, equivalent of a category 4 hurricane and 4 million people are currently in the path. The country deployed soldiers to help people in the northern part of the country get to safety. We will have a report from the Philippines soon. Let's get the latest on Hurricane Florence. It made landfall as a category one storm just after 7:00 a.m. in North Carolina. The punishing winds brought down this gas station's entire awning basically. And take a look at these pictures from New Bern. The storm's powerful surge completely flooded that town. About 150 people are waiting still to be pulled out of the area. And we are also seeing water rescues under way taking place in River Bend among other places. We are hearing from FEMA, that's the federal emergency agency, that 1,300 people deployed to help local authorities. Also, Florence has knocked out the power to more than 600,000 people. Our colleague Derek Van Dam was out in Carolina Beach when he experienced that for himself.
[Derek Van Dam, Cnn Meteorologist:] Let's say 30 minutes as we noticed that inner eye wall. There it goes. There goes the lights. That's it. All right. That's what I expected.
[Gorani:] Despite days of dire warnings to get out, some are riding out this storm. Our Scott McClean spoke to a Myrtle Beach resident saying, well, he is not going anywhere.
[Unidentified Male:] I've stayed here in Hugo and I hadn't left. Didn't leave in Matthew. And I just going to ride it out.
[Scott Mcclean, Cnn Correspondent:] This is supposed to be worse than Matthew.
[Unidentified Male:] Yes. But I think because winds blow offshore, I think it won't be a surge problem. So
[Mcclean:] You're not worried about flooding?
[Unidentified Male:] No. We are up on the Sand Hill.
[Gorani:] Now, CNN has correspondents fanned out across the region. Look at this video of John Berman. He was in Wilmington, North Carolina, as the storm made landfall. Maybe you can make him out between the wind gusts and the sheets of rain. How does it feel to be inside this storm? Let's bring in Nick Watt in North Myrtle Beach. Obviously, you're raining very heavily. What's the situation now where you are?
[Nick Watt, Cnn Correspondent:] Well, Hala, where we are, I just spoken to local officials here and they have suspended basically the emergency service. 911 calls, they will not send first responders out unless it's a life-threatening situation. And the reason for that is the gusts of wind. Up maybe 130, 140 kilometers an hour. Expected this afternoon. They have been picking up since last night when the first bands of this hurricane started coming over where we are. We are actually staying in a house right on the beach. The house is on stilts so that any storm surge passes underneath the house but the flip side of that is during the night it was hard to sleep because the house was actually moving in the wind. The winds were that strong. The gusts were that powerful. Now, water is the big story, though, of this hurricane. And, you know, we have already had 50 centimeters of rain reported in places. There's a forecast for 100 centimeters of rain to fall in just a few days in certain parts of the Carolinas and that could be devastating. The issue where I am in North Myrtle Beach, we are on this beautiful 60-mile stretch of sand, the grand strand, attracts 14 million tourists a year. Should be sunny right now and holiday time. Instead at the grim reality of what people face on the ground. About 2,000 people have decided to tough it out here. And stay in North Myrtle Beach. You know, since the storm was downgraded category-wise from a 3 to a 2 to a 1 people said it won't be that bad. I'll stay. Those categories are just for wind speed. You know? This storm is still, you know, 15,000 miles across. Twice the size of the state of Massachusetts. And packing so much rain that, you know, 10 trillion gallons to fall on North Carolina alone. Where we are, the issue is going to ocean you can see behind me. Coming up to high tide now and the issue is going to be that water comes in and inundates this is village, this town. 2016 Hurricane Matthew, this whole place flooded. We are if between the ocean and something called the intercoastal waterway, a big sort of canal that runs a couple of blocks inland from us so later today there could be a time when the eye of the storm is actually inland from us and we are in between the eye of the storm and the ocean. That's when it's bad. But the other major thing about this hurricane, it is moving so slowly and because it's moving so slowly it dumps a lot of water. Previous hurricanes moved with very, very high wind but they have moved faster through here. This one is crawling. You could jog faster than this hurricane and going slowly and just dumping, dumping, dumping rain. That's going to be an issue. That's going to be the story of the next few hours and weeks maybe.
[Gorani:] Certainly, we're going to be keeping an eye on that. You mentioned potentially that the water could rise still and flood parts of north myrtle beach. Has the worst of the storm in terms of wind gusts passed now?
[Watt:] Well, the winds in this hurricane are dropping but the gusts are still up at, you know, 90 miles per hour, 140 kilometers per hour. That's another issue with the storm being so slow so, you know, can a building sustain winds of 100 kilometers a hour for 24 hours? You know? That's the issue. So, you know, even if the winds drop a little bit, the fact it's so slow, there's wind damage and seen downed power lines around where we are already right now. This town about half the people here have lost power and only gets worse because the storm actually hasn't started to move down towards us so here in North Myrtle Beach it's only going to get worse. Hala?
[Gorani:] Nick Watt, thanks very much, in north myrtle beach, North Carolina. Miguel Marquez is inside the storm. He is in Carolina Beach, North Carolina, right now. Miguel, tell us what's going on where you are.
[Miguel Marquez, Cnn Correspondent:] Well, struggling to stay standing because the wind is blowing so hard and in knee-deep water because the storm surge has come in and even though we near a waning tide it is still very high. It goes several hundred meters back up into the town of Carolina Beach. This is Carl Winter Boulevard and myrtle avenue in Carolina Beach and inundated. This area does flood often in this town but they have folks I have been talking to this morning haven't seen it come up quickly. In a half hour, the area was flooded and not sure when it goes back down. I spoke to the city manager a little while ago and he said that it may be Saturday or Sunday before they're able to open the bridge that will allow people back in and out of this area because there's just so much water. This storm will not quit. It just continues and continues to dump rain and wind and bring the storm surge. We were up during the eye of the storm. There was literally not a breeze in the air and now it is back to hurricane conditions. What you are looking at right now is the marina here in the Carolina Beach. It is clearly overflowing. All of the boats in there remaining moored and in good shape. But the one thing that emergency managers are asking here, they haven't had a lot of major issues other than flooding and some minor damage. But what they're asking across the county, New Hanover County, if you need assistance, make sure that it is dire and life threatening because their 911 operators are overwhelmed. Hala?
[Gorani:] Yes. I was just going to ask you about that. The structures are still standing. The boats are fine. But the big concern of what you are saying is sustained rains. Right? And then that you have water levels that are high for many, many days. This is not a fast-moving storm.
[Marquez:] Yes. It is just sitting on top of us not going anywhere. So, rain coming down from the heavens and then water pushing in from the ocean. That storm surge, the two of those together just a mix that's going to make life miserable here for days to come. Hala?
[Gorani:] All right. Miguel Marquez, thanks very much, Carolina Beach, North Carolina. Joining us, I want to speak to Natalie Gomes now. She lives in Wilmington, North Carolina. One of the areas hit hardest by the storm and took pictures of downed trees in the neighborhood. She joins me now on the phone. Thanks for being with us. We're showing the viewers all over the world pictures of trees coming down. A lot of them caused damage to homes. Is your home OK?
[Natalie Gomes, Resident, Wilmington:] Yes. We are just fine. We don't have power and lost power around midnight here. Other than that, we're OK.
[Gorani:] What's the situation in your neighborhood? Because it looks like there was a lot of damage in a short period of time.
[Gomes:] Yes. We had really, really intense winds come through last night. We don't have power and lost power around midnight here. Other than that, we're OK.
[Gorani:] What's the situation in your neighborhood? Because it looks like there was a lot of damage in a short period of time.
[Gomes:] Yes. We had really, really intense winds come through last night. They were really loud. About 3:00 in the morning. You know? I could feel the house just sort of moving with the wind, as well. Lots of tree limbs down. We don't have any flooding here thankfully.
[Gorani:] Thankfully. Did you sleep in your basement or I mean, it must be scary with winds so strong.
[Gomes:] Absolutely. Most of the houses here don't have basements actually. We spent it in our bedroom and just sort of heard the onslaught of leaves on the windows and things like that from the big gust of wind.
[Gorani:] I imagine that most people were expecting at least some damage. But is this more than you thought would happen so quickly in just a few hours?
[Gomes:] Honestly, we have so many big pine trees here and they're the ones that tend to break in the storms. So, it isn't necessarily more in my area than I was expecting but from some of the friends around town with pictures there were definitely places around town hit harder.
[Gorani:] You don't have any flooding. That's a good thing. Those standing waters are absolutely terrible. I hope everyone around you, the neighbors, is safe. No one was hurt?
[Gomes:] Everyone appears to be fine. There were a lot of people that did evacuate in our neighborhood. But my neighbors who did stay appear to be just fine today.
[Gorani:] Good. And you obviously stayed in your home. Why did you make that decision?
[Gomes:] We have seven dogs.
[Gorani:] Oh wow.
[Gomes:] And a few cats. And honestly, evacuating would have been really difficult. We looked at the directions the winds would be coming from and the direction our house sits and actually sort of figured out that we thought we would be OK with it.
[Gorani:] Going forward, you've looked at the forecast. What's in store for your part of North Carolina?
[Gomes:] Continued rain, continued winds. It should probably be raining through tomorrow is what we're expecting. And the winds have died down a lot. That's a good thing for us here.
[Gorani:] But the issue, obviously, I used to live in Atlanta and sometimes after the storm, the trees were standing and a little gust would take one down. They come down from the root. Hopefully there's you don't have any issue, any trees like that that could potentially fall on your home, your structure.
[Gomes:] My husband went out and measured the distance to the trees and calculate the height. He's in the military and kind of preparing for these sorts of big events and figured out we didn't have any at risk of falling on us.
[Gorani:] That's good news. I'm glad you're safe. Thank you so much for sending us the pictures. It gives the viewers everywhere around the world an idea of how quickly, quickly a storm like this and high winds can cause a lot of damage to buildings. Thankfully everyone is safe on your street. Thank you. A storm like this carries obviously many risk factors, given the projected path. Florence set to make a slow meandering crawl on to land for days of rain and flooding. Ivan Cabrera at the CNN Weather Center with more. So, we have been saying over and over again it is not the wind. It's the rain. It's the rising water levels. What's the forecast for this weather system?
[Ivan Cabrera, Cnn Meteorologist:] Hey, Hala. That remains the case over the next several hours. We have 120 kilometer per wind hurricane. One tick down, 119, a tropical storm. I haven't seen anything near 119 kilometers an hour for the wind speed. That's not an issue. The wind direction, though, still poses a threat because it is still pushing water on shore and that water has nowhere to go. I'll show you some of that in detail in a second but here's the latest radar with Hurricane Florence continues as you mentioned. Wobbling down to the south and west. Incredible amounts of rain and of course the story, as well. We just checked in with Nick down across North Myrtle Beach. Not as heavy as far as the rainfall and the wind direction changes in a couple of hours and then push the water ashore so I think they're actually going to get in trouble in the next couple of hours as far as the surge. There is Miguel. Continuing to see that stream of wind coming in off the water. And I'll go ahead and zoom in here to see some of the rainfall here. Incredible amounts. Taking the radar out. I think that gives you perspective as far as why we have a significant issue here, look at these rivers here. The water has nowhere to go. The wind continues to push the ocean in and continue to pile up. You add the high tide on top of that. A few cycles, higher water and then there's the water falling from the sky. That's also adding to the problem. That water's trying to drain out, Hala, but it can't go anywhere until the winds turn direction and they're not going to for quite sometime and holding the storm surge in. Here's the wind gusts. 80 in Wilmington. 78 in Myrtle Beach. Nothing to sneeze at here and not what we had when it first landfall. The wind speed not as much of an issue, diminishes. The wind direction is still a problem and the while dumping several well, at this point here talking the potential for half a meter of water additional rainfall coming in. Happening in the next three days as the storm slowly heads off to the south and west and curls up to the north. We'll track this throughout the weekend because the danger is going to continue I think through next week.
[Gorani:] Yes. Right. Absolutely. We are going to be covering this with our team of correspondents and meteorologists because this is a story that will go that will certainly last throughout the weekend. Thank you. A larger threatens southeast Asia. We'll hear from a storm tracker and an aid official as the super typhoon hurdles toward the Philippines. We'll be right back.