Two South Carolina journalists were killed Monday while covering the effects of storms in Polk County, North Carolina.

Mike McCormick, a television news anchor for Greenville's WYFF News 4, and Aaron Smeltzer, a WYFF photojournalist, died when a tree three feet in diameter fell onto their SUV while they were driving, according to Polk County authorities.

The wreck happened on U.S. Hwy. 176 near the town of Saluda, North Carolina, around 2:30 p.m., officials say.

"All of us at WYFF News 4 are grieving. We are a family and we thank you, our extended family, for your comfort as we mourn and as we seek to comfort the families of Mike and Aaron." WYFF wrote on its Facebook page.

The two men had conducted an interview with Polk County authorities minutes before the accident, focusing on the dangers and hazards storms were creating in the area.

An unnamed Polk County official said the ground in the area was saturated from a week of rainfall, and called the tree falling a "freak accident."

“It personally affected me because I had done an interview with Mr. McCormick about 10 minutes before I got the call, and we had talked about how he wanted us to stay safe and how we wanted him to stay safe," a fire-rescue official said in an afternoon news conference. "It was the first time I had met either one of those two gentlemen, but you feel a sense of responsibility to them."

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