Local officials have warned about serious flooding for days, and some of the hardest-hit areas – parts of Brunswick County, for example, have had to evacuate. But other parts of the region haven’t seen much more than minor ponding in the roadways. When the severity of weather conditions isn't observable for everyone, getting people to take the warnings seriously becomes its own struggle.
It’s especially discouraging for Steven Pfaff when people ignore the messages. Pfaff is a Warning Coordination Meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Wilmington. He says that often the warnings will include the areas where conditions are expected to become extreme – but that kind of geographic precision isn’t always possible.
"The science is not there yet where we can get pinpoint block-by-block if severe weather is going to occur or not. So we kind of have to paint a little bit wider brush to highlight which parts of the counties are going to produce severe weather – in this case, catastrophic flooding like we’ve witnessed in Brunswick County."
While the rainfall is drying up, it could take a few days to see the floodwaters recede, according to Pfaff, partly because of higher-than-normal water levels along the coast. In the meantime, if you encounter a flooded roadway, don’t drive through it. Pfaff says several people have died trying to do just that. But even if you make it through, there are other negative effects you may not see.
"We need to take this a little bit more seriously. The wakes that people are creating by driving through the flooded areas are swamping other vehicles and they’re also getting into peoples’ homes in some cases."
It only takes a foot of water to float a vehicle, and it only takes 4-6 inches of flowing water to push a car off the roadway.
