Residents On Alert After Torrential Flooding

HICKORY, NC — Residents in several western North Carolina counties are on alert, but say, while the overflowing waterways and mudslides are scary, they can’t let it stop them from living their lives.

First responders from more than 20 agencies responded to a house on Pine Ridge Road in Boone Wednesday night, only to find the home had collapsed from a landslide and ruptured a gas line.

It was a heartbreaking incident that left two people dead.

Governor Roy Cooper says, “It’s a tragedy when we lose lives. And we want the families to know that our hearts are with them.”

Thursday, water runoff continued to fall in Lenoir.

On Waterfalls Road, we saw a massive landslide with inches of mud coating the road.

McDowell County resident, Mario Ramirez says “A lot of landslides and stuff like that, and a lot of rivers overflowing, and the Greenway. Like that too just been getting really bad.”

Not far away in Morganton, on the Catawba Greenway, a disc golf course is still submerged in a least a foot of water.

“We just walked out and saw a bunch of the water just ride up to the edge of the walkway,” says Deana Gates, a Morganton resident.

Residents say they just want it to end, and wonder when they’ll be able to go back to normal.

“Kind of surprising because all the years I’ve been living here I’ve never seen something like that,” says Ramirez.

As Governor Cooper toured the worst hit areas he reminded people that if you run into water on the road, please don’t try and drive across it.