Two people, after waiting more than three hours in 90-degree weather for freshly made ice, had just fainted, a group of people said, pointing to an ambulance pulled up by the side of the gas station.

More than a hundred onlookers standing next to coolers in shorts and flip-flops watched the first responders help a woman sit down. Police sirens screeched incessantly in the background, off to another location.

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For the first time in a week since before Hurricane Florence took the town apart, the sun came out in Wilmington and brought a new set of problems. It’s now boiling hot and many people here in this stricken North Carolina city don’t have air conditioning or enough gas for the generators to turn on fans.

Hurricane Florence has consumed the town physically and exhausted its residents and responders emotionally. Every conversation is one of survival, how families are faring and how they will cope in the weeks and months ahead.

Downed power lines were tangled in tree limbs. Pool-sized bodies of water created by Florence cut off entire streets, and sometimes, neighborhoods from the rest of Wilmington. And now the town – which was cut off from the rest of the state over the weekend – is in survival mode, even if a roadway in has been opened by emergency workers.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Michael Horner’s gas tank is on empty so he can’t move until gas is delivered to this station in Wilmington, North Carolina. ‘I am trapped, I’m stuck here,’ he said. Photograph: Khushbu Shah/The Guardian

Next to a 200-car line for gas, Michael Horner sat helplessly at a closed gas station. He can’t idle or start and stop his car for four hours because his tank is on empty.

“I’m hoping a tanker truck [with gas] will show up,” the 60-year-old said. He didn’t know if one would. “Just hopin’,” he added staring at the gas station next door. It could be days, possibly longer. “I’m here until I get gas.”

On top of being stranded in his car, Horner had no power at home and three windows were knocked down, letting in a torrent of rain over three days.

“I am trapped, I’m stuck here,” he said resignedly.

A few feet away, at a functioning gas station, Jerry Murrell sat patiently in his white pickup truck. He was next in line to refill and it had taken four hours. “I’m an original, been here since ’49 and this one right here is gonna rank right up there with Bertha because then, it took a week to get power. This time, it’s going to be a while.”

He didn’t want to wait for gas, but his house was damp, without air and he had no choice but to air it out. “I had to turn the air conditioning on to keep the moisture out of the house.”

Florence floodwaters leave Wilmington residents desperately seeking fuel Read more

Murrell is one of the lucky ones. Down the road at a Harris Teeter grocery store, a man sleeping in the Hoggard high school shelter picked up bananas and sat at the tables by Starbucks. He had nowhere else to go and it was one of the few places with air conditioning as temperatures rose.

As the water slowly recedes under the glaring blaze of sweltering sunlight, survival in Wilmington is most crucial as getting food and clean water become paramount.

In front of National Food market, Jesseca Toamani carried her five-week-old son, Harris, back into the pickup truck while her husband bought snacks at the convenience store. The bees had come out after the rain and Harris needed some protection. “I couldn’t wait in line at the Harris Teeter, it was too long,” she said, putting the pacifier in the baby’s mouth as he wailed. His light blue onesie looked too warm in the sweltering heat. She fanned Harris as his cheeks turned red.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Men who have come to Wilmington, North Carolina, from other parts of the state to help with the recovery process. Photograph: Khushbu Shah/The Guardian

Residents weren’t the only ones frustrated with the recovery process. A group of men, coming in from other parts of North Carolina, have descended on Wilmington. Parked in the road, next to two piles of 50ft trees cut into 2ft chunks, they ask drivers in passing cars if they need help, clearing roads and yards.

“Fema called us but we didn’t want to come with them,” Al Lewis said, leaning against the truck. The dozen men with him, clad in overalls and baseball caps, bobbed their heads up and down in agreement. Though they have worked straight through the night, that’s not the part that bothered them about the backbreaking work of helping those trapped by trees and power lines.

They say most residents of the town are starting the recovery by themselves as the official response is still lagging.

“I’ve been to every hurricane there is. They had food on every corner; they had stuff. They come together down in Texas. They come together good. Out here, they ain’t together. They ain’t got food, they ain’t got water, they got nothing,” he said.

He and his crew haven’t been able to find gas in four days, just like most people in Wilmington. “We’re out here roughing it,” Lewis said.

Five streets over, a man jumped out of a City of Wilmington truck. He picked up a fallen street sign and banged it back into the ground, looking satisfied with his handiwork.

But for many of those stuck in Wilmington, in the stifling heat, such acts are barely the beginning of the recovery.