WASHINGTON, N.C. — After slamming into the Carolina coast on Friday with powerful winds and torrential rains, Hurricane Florence left a trail of devastation as it crawled over the southeastern part of the state, posing what may be its greatest threat in the days ahead as it roars inland with what are shaping up to be record-setting quantities of water.

The storm, whose destructive power was unlike any the area has seen in a generation, had already caused at least five fatalities as of Friday afternoon, and rescue crews across a wide region were attempting to pluck distressed residents from rooftops. The victims included a mother and her infant in Wilmington, N.C., who were killed when a tree fell on their house, the police department said.

Rescuers spent hours trying to reach the mother and infant, who were trapped by the tree and a portion of the roof that had collapsed on them, said Deputy Fire Chief J.S. Mason.

Downed trees also delayed crews responding to a 911 call from the home of a woman who died of a heart attack Friday morning in Hampstead, an unincorporated area of Pender County, N.C., officials said. Another two people, both in their 70s, were killed in Lenoir County, one while trying to connect two extension cords outside in the rain, and the other when he went outside to check on his hunting dogs and was blown down by wind, the authorities said.