The Hampton Script

Isaiah Spencer | Staff Writer

This image was captured by satellite around 1:45 pm ET Wednesday, Sept. 12. NOAA/STAR

Hurricane Florence has been a trending topic for the past two weeks.

Hampton Roads, the Northampton area, the coastal area of North Carolina, including Wilmington, and parts of South Carolina were expected to get the worst end of the hurricane. Governor Ralph Northam urged residents to evacuate because of potential damage that could affect Virginia. In the days leading up to the hurricane newscasters projected that it would storm all week in the Hampton Roads area, but as the days passed, the “hype” of hurricane Florence subsided.

“I was very scared of this hurricane because we are right on the water. I remember my freshman year we had that bad storm and half of the waterfront was flooded. So, I didn’t take any chances,” said Taiveon Drinkard, a senior at Hampton University.

Florence ultimately sprawled over six different states with North and South Carolina being hurricane Florence’s focal point. Over 523,000 homes and businesses are without power as of right now, and the death toll is currently at 17. One of the victims was a 3-month-old baby who was found in a mobile home in North Carolina. A man and a woman were also found dead from carbon monoxide poisoning in Horry County, S.C.

Areas that didn’t get immediate catastrophic effects from the storm are still left to deal with major flooding issues. More than 30 inches of rain was measured in Jacksonville and Swansboro, NC. A state record has been broken in North Carolina with the rain floods with many other areas getting 20 inches or more.

“The storm has never been more dangerous,” said Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina.

Hurricane Florence was projected to be a category 5. Back in 2005 Hurricane Katrina was also classified as a Category 5 hurricane, this worried a lot of those who lived in the projected path of Florence.

“When I first heard about the hurricane I didn’t really want to evacuate because I had a gut feeling it wasn’t going to be that bad. Once I heard it was going to be category 5 I took it more seriously because I heard Katrina was C5 and that is no joke,” said Jamil Best, a senior at Hampton University.

As of this week, Florence was still in effect as a tropical storm spreading through parts of the Carolinas and heading south. It is the wettest tropical cyclone on record in the Carolinas and the ninth wettest tropical cyclone to affect the United States.

With Florence already wreaking havoc in Virginia and the Carolinas, State of Emergencies have also been declared in other regions including Georgia, Maryland and Washington, D.C.