
President Trump issued a disaster declaration early Saturday that will help residents in North Carolina begin the process of rebuilding their homes and communities in the wake of the storm.

That came as the region is dealing with a deluge of ran on top of the storm surge, resulting in flood waters that have left some homes completely underwater.

This rain also has officials concerned about flash flooding, which in the past have caused just as much damage as the actual hurricane in the wake of these devastating storms.

President Trump also revealed he will be heading to North Carolina next week to asses the damage.

Hundreds of residents were left trapped ad close to a million had no power in the wake of the storm, while eight were killed as Hurricane Florence battered the south-east coast of America on its path of destruction.

Blowing ashore with howling 90 mph winds, Hurricane Florence splintered buildings, trapped hundreds of people and swamped entire communities along the Carolina coast.

Roads became flooded, trees blown over and homes destroyed as some parts of North Carolina have already seen surges of flood water as high as 10ft.

As Florence first broke on land yesterday 90mph winds struck the coastal areas, but as the storm system moved across land it was downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm.

But it continues to soak the East Coast area with rain, downing trees, damaging homes and leaving hundreds of people stranded as it slowly grinds over the eastern states, with winds of 65mph.

Firefighters use a boat to rescue three people from their flooded home during the Hurricane Florence in New Bern on Friday

Robert Simmons Jr. and his kitten 'Survivor' are rescued from floodwaters in New Bern on Friday in the aftermath of Florence

Volunteers from all over North Carolina help rescue residents and their pets from their flooded homes in New Bern

Rescue team members Sgt. Matt Locke (left) and Sgt. Nick Muhar (right) evacuates a family from floodwaters in New Bern

A car was left stuck in a flooded parking lot outside the New Bern Mall after a 10ft surge of water crashed through the city

A gas station has its roof blown off in Wilmington. The storm has already killed five people, including a mother and her eight-month-old baby

Forecasters have warned parts of North and South Carolina, and Virginia are at risk of being hit by deadly flash floods form the rising water cause by the storm.

Eight deaths have been linked to the storm and around 2,000 people have been forced to stay in emergency shelters.

Swift-water rescue teams had saved more than 360 people in New Bern, North Carolina, by mid-afternoon on Friday, and another 140 were still waiting for help, a city spokeswoman said.

More than 1.7 million people in North and South Carolina were under evacuation orders before Florence hit, but it's unclear how many of them decided to remain in their homes.

Nearly a million are without power in the Carolinas early on Saturday, with 773,559 outages in North Carolina and 166,589 without electricity in South Carolina.

The storm has already killed five people, including a mother and her eight-month-old baby.

Lesha Murphy-Johnson and her baby, Zac, were trapped inside their home in Wilmington after a tree fell onto the roof at around 9.30am on Friday.

Homes are flooded after a storm surge from Hurricane Florence flooded the Neuse River on Friday in New Bern

Boats pushed away from the dock are seen on a street during the passing of Hurricane Florence in the town of New Bern

Volunteer rescuers are seen navigating the flooded streets of New Bern, where hundreds remained despite evacuation orders

Flooding from the heavy rain is forcing hundreds of people to call for emergency rescues in the area around New Bern, North Carolina, which sits at the confluence of the Nuese and Trent rivers

Firefighters who frantically tried to lift the tree so they could escape began kneeling in a circle to pray after it became apparent there was nothing further they could do.

The baby's father, Lawrence, was rescued and taken into an ambulance but police declared the mother and baby dead at 2.30pm.

National Guard were then called in to remove the shattered tree. Murphy-Johnson's death was confirmed to DailyMail.com by her ex-husband who was shown her ID by authorities and asked to identify her.

Separately, a woman died of a heart attack in Hampstead after medics were unable to reach her, officials announced on Friday afternoon.

In Kinston, two additional fatalities were reported including a 78-year-old man who was electrocuted while trying to connect a generator extension cord in the rain, and a 77-year-old man was found dead outside of his home, possibly after having been blown over by the wind while checking on his dogs, officials said.

In Fayetteville, North Carolina, two people died in a house fire, after firefighters were prevented for entering the building quickly due to the storm. The cause of the blaze is still unknown.

Water from the Neuse river floods the streets during the passing of Hurricane Florence in the besieged city of New Bern

Rescue workers attempt to remove a giant tree that toppled onto a house and killed a mother and her baby and injured a third person in Wilmington

Tahrike Shaw sings, prays and dances as he walks along the sidewalk as Hurricane Florence comes ashore in Wilmington, North Carolina

Florence is expected to dump 18 trillion gallons of rainwater on US soil, meteorologist Ryan Maue.

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said the hurricane was likely to 'continue its violent grind for days' and described the severity of the downfalls as a '1,000 year event'.

The White House said yesterday that President Donald Trump would travel to the region next week unless his trip would disrupt clean-up and rescue efforts.

Although not directly on the coast, the besieged city of New Bern, North Carolina, was inundated by a massive 10ft storm surge when the adjacent Neuse River burst its banks on Thursday night as Florence simultaneously dumped huge amounts of rain on the area - as much as 23 inches in nearby Morehead City.

'I feel like the dumbest human being who ever walked the face of the earth,' said Tom Ballance, who owns a restaurant in New Bern, on his decision not to evacuate.

Though not directly on the coast, New Bern was inundated by a massive 10ft storm surge when the adjacent Neuse River burst its banks on Thursday night as Florence simultaneously dumped huge amounts of rain on the area - as much as 23 inches in nearby Morehead City.

A Wilmington resident wades through the water as he walks through the high water caused by tropical storm Florence

One of New Bern's signature bears sits in the middle of a flooded Front Street downtown after being displaced by floods

New Bern resident Teddie Davis checks on another one of the bears that was toppled and damaged by Hurricane Florence

A rescue team from the North Carolina National Guard 1/120th battalion evacuates a family as the rising floodwaters from Hurricane Florence threatens their home in New Bern on Friday

A fallen tree crashed through the roof of a fast food restaurant in Wilmington. Thousands have been left without power after the tropical storm

Ballance said his wife went to Atlanta and he stayed behind in their New Bern home with their three dogs and a cat.

Around 3.30pm Thursday, the electricity went out. By midnight, his rain gauge showed that he'd gotten nine inches of rain since mid-afternoon. He drifted off to sleep.

About 40 minutes later, he woke and went to a sun room, where he'd boarded up all the windows except for a small hole. He shone a flashlight through the glass.

'I about jumped out of my skin,' he said in a phone interview Friday morning. 'These were waves crashing down.'

Those waves were coming from the Neuse River, which is about 25 feet away, and downhill, from his house. He made a plan B:iIf the water reached the house, he'd take the pets upstairs to the second floor.

'The water kept rising and kept rising,' he said.

But the water never quite made it to his home. Ballance called the rainfall 'biblical,' saying he's gotten reports from friends that his downtown seafood restaurant was flooded, just like the rest of the downtown.

A family is stalled in water as they wait to be rescued during the passing of Hurricane Florence in the town of New Bern

A rescue team from the North Carolina National Guard 1/120th battalion evacuates an elderly woman from her apartment as the rising floodwaters from Hurricane Florence threatens her home in New Bern on Friday

By Friday night, the center of the now tropical storm had drifted south of the border into South Carolina, raising fears that Myrtle Beach could be cut off from the mainland by flooding as authorities suspended emergency service.

On Friday, though, much of the rescue activity centered on New Bern, where officials kicked the famed Louisiana Cajun Navy out of town despite the huge backlog of rescue requests, saying they would be handled through official channels and by local volunteers.

The city of about 29,000, which was founded in the early 1700s and was briefly the state capital, is near the North Carolina coast and is bordered on the east and south, respectively, by two rivers, the Neuse and Trent.

Sixty-seven-year-old Sadie Marie Holt was among those rescued Friday in New Bern.

Holt, who has diabetes and clogged arteries, said she stayed for doctor's appointments that were canceled at the last minute. She tried to row out of her neighborhood Thursday night with a boat that was in her yard after her home began to flood, but had to retreat because of the poor conditions.

'The wind was so hard, the waters were so hard that, trying to get out, we got thrown into trailers. We got thrown into mailboxes. Houses. Trees,' Holt said.

Volunteer Amber Hersel from the Civilian Crisis Response Team helps rescue 7-year-old Keiyana Cromartie and her family from their flooded home on Friday in James City, just across the Trent River from New Bern

Volunteers help rescue residents and their pets from their flooded homes in New Bern during Hurricane Florence on Friday

Dawn Baldwin Gibson, 47, a minister and private school founder who lives on a farm closer to the coast in nearby Pamlico County and runs a Facebook page about weather in eastern North Carolina, had evacuated to New Bern to stay with family, thinking it would be a safer spot.

Gibson said Friday that while she and her family were safe, she and her husband had gotten around 75 calls and texts from others asking for help.

'And from that point, we started hearing where people were saying on phone calls, 'I love you,' to their family members because they were not sure they were going to get out of it alive,' she said Friday.

'It's like a bomb has gone off,' New Bern resident George Zaytoun told 'Good Morning America' on Friday. 'Everything around us is underwater.'

Zaytoun now regrets his decision to stay. 'I think we kind of let our guards down,' he said of his community's response to the storm's being downgraded before landfall.

The National Weather Service said flash flooding was expected to continue through the rest of Friday in New Bern and surrounding areas. A 24-hour curfew was in effect.

Roberts, the city spokeswoman, said preliminary estimates show about 4,300 residences and 300 commercial buildings had been damaged. She said that count is expected to increase significantly.

Firefighters use a boat to rescue three people from their flooded home during Hurricane Florence in New Bern

New Bern firefighters use a boat to rescue people from their flooded homes during Hurricane Florence

Rescuers bring residents to safety after they remained in the mandatory evacuation zone during Hurricane Florence

In other parts of the evacuation zones, residents were also left ruing their decision to stay, and wondering how they would escape.

Across the Neuse River from New Bern in Bayboro, resident Kim Dunn, the mother of a 10-month-old, a three-year-old and an eight-year-old, said she made a decision to stay behind while others fled.

'We were trying to figure out if we had enough finances to get out and if we were to get out, were we going to be able to get back home. So we made a decision to stay,' she told ABC News. 'I don't know how long it's going to be before the water actually starts to come into the apartment.'

Trying to escape on Friday, she was trapped in her truck surrounded by rising water as her boyfriend and his cousin were stranded on a paddle boat less than a mile away.

The water was as high as street signs, and 'we have no way to get to them,' Dunn said.

'They've been out there for about six hours now just screaming for help,' she said. 'Only communication we have with them is just me flashing my lights to them and I think they have a flashlight they're flickering back to us.'

About 75 miles southwest, in Sneads Ferry, resident Jeanette Rivera said staying put had seemed like a good idea until the devastation became clear on Friday.

'I'm really upset at myself for staying,' Jeanette Rivera, 47, told NBC News. 'I just want to get out of here.'

'Half my dock is floating,' she said. 'Our house is completely surrounded by the ocean on all sides. I feel like our house could go at any minute. ... We already have a foot of water in our garage and the neighbor's house is completely flooded out.'

'It's difficult for me to watch,' she said. 'Every angle that I look, I'm surrounded by ocean.'

In a Facebook post, Rivera explained that she and her husband had stayed behind because they expected the impact to be more like Hurricane Matthew in 2016, and because they feared looters raiding their home.

'Is it scary? Yes, have I cried you bet, have I said what the hell were we thinking, yup! But we're here!' she wrote.

President Donald Trump received a briefing on the federal disaster response in the White House Situation room on Friday.

White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said Trump called North Carolinia officials to assure them that the federal government 'stood ready and prepared to assist with anything their state and respective communities would need during this natural disaster.'

President Trump received a briefing on the federal disaster response in the White House Situation room on Friday

After being ejected from New Bern, the Cajun Navy headed down toward the coast, responding to an SOS on Facebook from the Carteret County Humane Society in Newport.

The Humane Society pleaded for help, saying that at least two people along with 43 dogs and about 80 cats were trapped on the top floor of the building, USA Today reported.

Roughly 15 chickens and roosters were also stuck in an area at the back of the facility, but flooding kept staff from reaching them.

The Cajun Navy helped escort the shelter workers to safety later that evening, and emergency personnel put the animals in large vehicles soon after.