A tropical rainstorm slammed the town of Carolina Beach, North Carolina, with an intense rain band on Sept. 16, flooding the area beyond anything locals have seen in decades.
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00:00Our team coverage continues right now with Accuweather's Allie Reed. Allie, I called you
00:03about 15 minutes ago and I said here comes your rain band. I assumed it was fast and
00:08furious for about 15 or 20 minutes. Now it's lifted off to your north.
00:15Bernie, that is the perfect way to describe what just happened here. Fast
00:19and furious. It came with thunder and lightning and my photographer Andy just made the point. He
00:24goes here comes the sunshine. Incredible stuff what we just saw. I think the best way to describe
00:29it. We were just inundated with that rainfall. Now here we are live in Carolina Beach where
00:33people are coming out and seeing this out some of their front doorsteps and many businesses
00:39wondering when they possibly will be able to reopen. I can tell you it's not going to be
00:43tomorrow. Many people are going to be rebuilding over the next coming weeks, potentially even
00:48months. We spoke to people earlier who said they have lost everything in their homes and while
00:53this may not necessarily be a named storm, many people are saying today wow this has done some
00:59serious damage here. I want to take to the sound. This just shows to you this is a man who has
01:04lived here for 20 plus years says he's never seen anything like this. Take a listen. I've never seen
01:10anything like this in about 20 years. It's a pretty much the craziest event we've ever seen
01:17especially for an unnamed storm. We just had another friend of ours who lives down the road
01:21on canal drive and he lost everything. He's in construction. He has a trailer and truck that's
01:26under four foot of water in his yard right now. I mean it's pretty devastating to be honest with you.
01:34You hear that from him. The other thing I want to pay attention to, can we bring you back live here?
01:38You see the fire department here making their way throughout the town really checking on people. We
01:43also know that there have been a number of live rescues here as well. There have been people that
01:48have been having to have to be saved from their homes, from their vehicles here. Many of those
01:52cars by the way stalled out and yes while the sunshine is now here there are going to be plenty
01:58of headaches that people are going to be dealing with over the next couple of weeks to say the
02:02least. Many people out on paddle boards, surfboards, kayaks today getting a feel for what it looks like
02:09here. Bernie and Jeff, there's going to be a lot of rebuilding to be done here. Unfortunately there
02:15is a lot of devastation that we may not even be seeing yet but you could see it firsthand here
02:19just how bad the flooding here is in town. And one more thing I want to mention
02:24what I think is crazy. Our photographer Andy who I'm with today, this is his beach. The beach
02:30that he and his family come to year after year. Andy I know we can't see you. Give me a quick uh
02:36how does it feel knowing that your family's beach is looking like this right now? It's just
02:40absolutely heartbreaking. It's something you never imagined. I mean we've been coming here for 10
02:43years and never seen anything like this. Yeah he was showing me pictures on social media earlier of
02:48he and his family here just in June. Yeah it's it's hard. I mean it makes you emotional. This is
02:53a place that many people come to and now look at it. It's devastating. Just to put a bow on what
02:58you just said Allie, we talked with Storm Chasers uh Allie um not Allie Reed, you're Allie Reed but
03:05we stopped uh talked with Storm Chasers uh Aaron Jayjack and also Tony Loback. They said they've
03:12never been in a rain band like this. This is what occurred or what has caused all of the problems
03:18here this afternoon. Now it started here near the Wilmington Wrightsville beach area then it pushed
03:24off to the south and east in toward the um uh in toward the Oak Island area. Now it's lifting
03:29back to the northeast. Just a very heavy rain band and I would not be surprised by the way
03:35if we started to see some tornado warnings within this band as well.