A live video captured the frantic moments after a bridge collapsed under a car with a person still trapped inside amid life-threatening floods in North Carolina.
More than a foot of rainfall triggered the floods, which occurred in North Carolina on Monday afternoon after Potential Tropical Cyclone Eight made landfall. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) began issuing advisories about the storm on Sunday, which was churning off the U.S. Southeastern coast at the time and warned of its “life-threatening” flash flooding impact in a social media post on Monday.
Meteorologists tracked the storm, which had a high chance of forming into Tropical Storm Helene, the eighth named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. However, although the storm reached tropical storm strength, it never attained the necessary structure to be classified as a tropical storm, Dan Brown, branch chief of the NHC’s hurricane specialist unit, told Newsweek.
Despite never being labeled as a tropical storm, it caused substantial impact, particularly across North Carolina. In Southport, AccuWeather storm chaser Aaron Jayjack was reporting live when a bridge collapsed beneath a vehicle with a person still trapped inside.
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“Storm chaser @aaronjayjack was live on the AccuWeather Network when a bridge collapsed beneath a vehicle trying to cross a flooded bridge. Fortunately, the driver was able to be pulled out,” AccuWeather posted on X, formerly Twitter, with the video.
“Oh my gosh. This bridge is collapsing right here, and this truck just fell into the bridge right here,” Jayjack said in the video as he approached the vehicle.
He asks the driver if they’re OK and attempts to aid them in exiting the truck. He instructed them to exit out of the back, as the front half was submerged in floodwaters. Jayjack then goes off camera to help the person. Upon returning, he explained: “Very unfortunate, guys, someone tried to go through the floodwaters across this creek that’s been raging for quite a while.”
AccuWeather senior meteorologist Alan Reppert told Newsweek that flooded streams or rivers can make bridges susceptible to collapse.
“That’s one of the big concerns with any tropical system with the rainfall that comes with it,” he said.
The rain in Southport has “started to come to an end,” Reppert added.
The National Weather Service frequently warns people to turn around when encountering flooded roads, as most flood deaths occur in a vehicle.
The flooding was severe across parts of southeastern North Carolina after the storm ripped through. Brown told Newsweek that the threat of locally heavy rainfall will shift into the mid-Atlantic states over the next few days.
