Joey Gill

USA TODAY NETWORK

NEW BERN, N.C. - Hundreds of people are awaiting rescue from their homes as flood waters continue to rise from Hurricane Florence.

“We’re estimating we’ve rescued 150-200,” New Bern Police Lt. David Daniels said early Friday morning, who estimates another 150-200 waiting to be rescued.

A later tally estimated about 350 people in New Bern needed rescue from flooding on the Neuse River, and about 70 people in Jacksonville, North Carolina, had to be moved to safety from a hotel whose structural integrity was threatened by the hurricane.

Authorities are advising residents who have not evacuated to go to the highest point in their homes, call 911 for help, keep their cell batteries charged as best they can and wait for help to arrive.

The city of New Bern issued a curfew Friday morning, effective from 7 a.m. Friday to 7 a.m. Saturday "upon any public street, alley or roadway or upon public property."

The National Weather Service office in Newport in a tweet called the storm surge "catastrophic." Flooding has spread throughout New Bern and is expected to continue.

The weather service later measured a storm surge 10 feet deep in the city, which lies on the Neuse River near the Atlantic coast. A U.S. Geological Service gauge for the Trent River in New Bern, North Carolina was "recording 10.1 feet of inundation" as of 1 a.m.

Hours before the storm made landfall Friday, workers at New Bern's WCTI-TV NewsChannel 12 had to abandon their studio because of flooding.

According to the 11 a.m. ET update from the National Hurricane Center, Florence as 55 miles east-northeast Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and 20 miles southwest of Wilmington, North Carolina, moving west-southwest at a speed of 3 mph.

Sustained winds were reported around 80 miles per hour with gusts up to 90 miles per hour at Cape Lookout, North Carolina. Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 70 miles from the center while tropical storm-force winds extend 195 miles.

SEE ALSO:Florence Flood Report Map for New Bern

"Storm surge values continue to rise in areas of onshore flow on the North Carolina coast and over inland waterways. A USGS gauge in Emerald Isle, North Carolina, recently recorded 6.3 feet of inundation."

The center of Florence is forecast to move further inland across southeastern North Carolina and eastern South Carolina through Saturday. The storm will then turn northward across Western North Carolina and the central Appalachian Mountains early next week.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.