For the latest updates on Hurricane Florence, read our Friday live briefing here.

GREENVILLE, N.C. — Hurricane Florence made landfall Friday in its brutish slow-motion collision with the Carolina coasts, with beach towns cowering under lashing rain and storm surge. Onshore wind gusts reached 90 miles an hour.

At the same time, residents and emergency personnel throughout inland North and South Carolina were working under the grim assumption that the Category 1 storm’s pounding of the coastline would be only the first powerful punch in a fight that could go many rounds and last for many days. It will play out not only among stilted beach cottages and seaside resorts, but also in workaday towns and cities much farther west.

“This may be the first time we’ve experienced such a two-punch from these kind of conditions,” said South Carolina’s governor, Henry McMaster, at a news conference on Thursday, speaking about evacuations along the coast as well as the possibility of rain-triggered landslides in the mountains.

Florence is proving to be a lumbering giant, with cloud cover as large as the Carolinas themselves. If, as expected, it dawdles over the region, the storm could drop rainfall of 20, 30 or even 40 inches in some areas. Anxiety is especially high over the fate of all of that water, which will have to go somewhere.