Storm chaser Aaron Jayjack reported live from the scene of severe flooding in southern North Carolina on Sept. 16 as a tropical rainstorm continued bringing heavy rain across the state.
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00:00We're going to check in right now with storm chaser Aaron J. Jackett.
00:03Aaron, we were live with you this afternoon and it was one of those events where again just kind
00:09of interpreting it as it unfolds before you and you're doing a job you're reporting live on the
00:15AccuWeather network when a car drove through flooded water and the driver had to be rescued.
00:19Thankfully nobody was hurt but what was this like here? Yeah it's been a wild day here in
00:27southeastern North Carolina specifically for me here in Southport but not just here but in Oak
00:33Island and Carolina Beach. Also significant impacts from flash flooding as a rain band set
00:39up from potential tropical cyclone that moved on shore this afternoon and yes I was live with
00:46AccuWeather trying to report on the storm itself. You know I had a shot of this river lots of
00:52rivers and creeks around here over their banks and one particular one there was a bridge and a
00:56car attempted to drive through the floodwaters. Now I had seen a you know a dozen maybe two dozen
01:01cars before that drive over this very same bridge but finally I guess you know the river underneath
01:08had washed out the dirt and caused this bridge to collapse when this vehicle tried to drive across
01:13through the floodwater so that just shows you the dangers of trying to drive through floodwaters.
01:17You never know what's going on underneath those waters and in this case a car fell through but
01:21fortunately the driver of the vehicle was okay. He suffered minor injuries. I think it was due to
01:27the glass as we had to break out the glass in the window for him to be able to get out but
01:31a very significant flash flooding here today in North Carolina that continues to flood right now.
01:37You've still got floods back behind me right now. Cars have been trapped stalled out in the water
01:42and the scenes like this are I'm seeing scenes like this all over Southport area. I'm just a
01:47little bit north of Southport right now but continues the waters continue to flow over roads
01:52and are slowly receding. I talked to some guys that were driving a four-wheeler and they had a
01:57pipe on their their four-wheeler so that it didn't stall and the water is actually made for going
02:01through water and he says the water had dropped about six inches since he was out here earlier
02:06today. Aaron I know that you're very coastal here but it seems that most of this rainwater you're
02:11saying and the floodwater was from rain as opposed to a storm surge. Do you think that's accurate?
02:17Yeah that's that's 100% accurate. You know we were getting four five six inches of rain per hour as
02:24that rain band set over this area for about a half an hour to 45 minutes before it moved a little bit
02:29to the west closer to Myrtle Beach that area Oak Island specifically. I think it parked right over
02:35Oak Island and then it swung back through this area back to the east and came over Southport
02:41once again dropping more rain. I think we probably got you know at least a foot of rain here probably
02:46closer pushing 14 inches of rain and you know it's a it's a unique experience. This is a rare
02:52flood. You know I was here in North Carolina for Florence in 2018. Bad flooding for Florence but
02:59that was more widespread. This is very isolated. It almost reminds me of covering a tornado damage
03:05path after the fact doing the reports on that whereas the impacts are significant but isolated
03:12here in Southport you know it's we didn't have the wind with the storm really there was wind but the
03:16wind wasn't the problem here today it was the rains and the flash flooding. All right and Aaron I know
03:21you've been out and about you've seen a lot of stuff today. If you were to estimate the number
03:24of cars that you have seen in water in a state where they either were not drivable or somebody
03:29had to get rescued how many do you think you've seen? Dozens. Every uh low water crossing that
03:35I've come across has been at least a couple of vehicles that are stalled out. You know there's
03:40there's dozens and I've only seen a small area here Southport. I can't even uh I'm trying to
03:44actually make my way out of Southport now I was going to track the the rain uh to the north northeast
03:49in the Fayetteville area uh but trying to get through these floodwaters uh it's a little bit
03:53difficult but you know and I've only seen one of you know a fraction of the Southport area and I've
03:58seen dozens of vehicles stalled out. That's pretty wild and it looks like somebody's driving a four
04:02wheeler. I was trying to tell her maybe there was a uh a wave runner in that last bit of video.
04:06Thank you for that report there uh in Bolivia, North Carolina right now as Aaron J. Jackson
04:11is still in a very waterlogged area uh within what a few dozen miles of Cape Fear. Thanks again, Aaron.