Though the wind speed of Hurricane Florence has increased dramatically, the worst part of this monster storm approaching the Carolinas may be days of relentless rain which will cause catastrophic flooding. RVers in the area – either traveling or local residents – should consider not waiting until the storm hits to get their RV out of the area before the coming chaos of people fleeing clog all roads heading west away from the coast.
“It appears a major flood event is on the way in the Middle Atlantic region,” meteorologist Mike Smith said. “It is likely some areas will flood that have never flooded before,” reports USA Today on Tuesday morning.
With “monumental” rainfall totals of up to 40 inches possible, “the rain from Florence may break all-time state records for rainfall from a hurricane or tropical storm,” Weather Underground meteorologist Jeff Masters said. It could potentially become the “Harvey of the East Coast.”
“All indications are that the storm will slow down and just crawl or meander over the inland sections and the coastal Piedmont,” Weather Channel hurricane expert Bryan Norcross said. “We don’t know exactly where the center will go, but it’s not really relevant. It’s more like a (Hurricane) Harvey situation, where it’ll just slowly wind down.”
Last year, Harvey made landfall north of Corpus Christi, then stalled over the Houston area, dropping as much as 5 feet of rain across the metro area.
“It will be worse than a Harvey in the sense that the terrain is not like Houston, which is flat. If you put 2, 3, 4 feet of rain over flat ground, you have a certain kind of problem.
“But if you put a foot or two – or maybe in some isolated places more – of rain over hills and mountains, you have a very different kind of problem which is really more dangerous than the flat situation, as bad as that was,” he said.
