Hurricane Florence, just downgraded to a Category 2 storm, is expected to bring catastrophic flooding to the Southeast and may dump as much as 40 inches of rain in North Carolina alone.
The rainfall could be historic and the flooding unprecedented, the National Weather Service office in Newport, North Carolina, warned Wednesday.
"This will likely be the storm of a lifetime for portions of the Carolina coast, and that's saying a lot given the impacts we've seen from Hurricanes Diana, Hugo, Fran, Bonnie, Floyd, and Matthew," according to one National Weather Service meteorologist in Wilmington, North Carolina. "I can't emphasize enough the potential for unbelievable damage from wind, storm surge, and inland flooding with this storm."
The latest tracking report from the National Hurricane Center released at 8 p.m. showed the eye of Florence about 335 miles southeast of Wilmington, North Carolina. The hurricane was moving northwest in the Atlantic at 16 mph and was packing sustained winds of 115 mph.
Brock Long, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, underscored the danger of the storm surge, telling "Good Morning America" Wednesday, "People do not live and survive to tell the tale about what their experience is like with storm surge. It's the most deadly part of the hurricane that comes in, it causes the most amount of destruction."