On Friday morning, the death toll from the storm was updated to 11 across the southeast, including five in Virginia, according to a tweet from the Virginia Department of Emergency Management.
Power outages included more than 180,000 in the Greensboro area and 56,000 in the Charlotte metro area, reported Duke Energy.
The number was expected to rise as the storm exited the state late Thursday, Duke said in a tweet.
Michael weakened to a post-tropical cyclone late Thursday and is expected to exit Virginia out into the Atlantic Ocean Friday morning, according to the National Hurricane Center.
The storm inflicted significant damage in the Carolinas, including flash flooding, downed trees on roads, and people who needed to be rescued from flood waters.
One North Carolina death is among at least 11 deaths tied so far to the storm as of Friday morning, according to The New York Times and Washington Post. Gov. Roy Cooper said in a press conference that an Iredell County man was killed when a tree fell on a car, the Charlotte Observer reported.
The other deaths included four in Florida and an 11-year-old girl in Georgia who died when a “carport hit her home in Seminole County,” said The Weather Channel. The five deaths in Virginia came as the state dealt with 520,000 power outages, 1,200 closed roads and five suspected tornadoes, said the Virginia Deptartment of Emergency Management in a tweet.
The South Carolina Department of Transportation reported 28 state roads and some coastal bridges had to be closed Thursday due to the storm. State crews cleared more than 900 fallen trees, said a report.
Flooding also caused interstate traffic disruptions Thursday afternoon when three ramps had to be closed at the interchange of interstates 85 and 385, near Greenville, reported Fox Carolina.
In Lexington County, S.C., deputies went door to door to check flooded homes after water overtook large sections of a neighborhood, reported the Lexington County Sheriff’s Office in a tweet. Flooding in the Bonnie Forest area, northwest of Columbia, forced an evaucation of homes, reported WOLO.
Four to five inches of rain was predicted with the storm in the Carolinas. In North Carolina, rainfall totals recorded by the U.S. Geological Survey Thursday showed some sites exceeded that by an inch or more.
The Meteorological Station at Glade Creek reported more than 10 inches of rain Thursday, while Pleasant Gardens reported 6.5 inches of rain, and a site near Greensboro saw 6.38 inches.
Spots in Morganton and Mocksville saw more than 5 inches of rain, says the USGS.
Flash flooding in Henderson County resulted in “multiple water rescues,” according to a Henderson County Sheriff’s Office Facebook post.
TV station WLOS reported more than 40 roads had to be closed in the county due to flooding and 18 people had to be rescued, including one involving an SUV whose driver “found her vehicle floating” when she tried driving through flood waters.
More than a dozen school districts announced they would either be closed Friday or would have two and three hour delays, reported WTVD.
Among the closures were some of the state’s largest school districts, including the Wake and Mecklenburg county districts and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools.
Mark Price: 704-358-5245, @markprice—obs
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