How Hurricane Florence unfolded in the Carolinas, day by day

CNN: For days, residents had been told to heed the warnings. Hurricane Florence, at its peak a Category 5, would be the "storm of a lifetime" for portions of the Carolina coast," the National Weather Service said. It would bring powerful wind, relentless rain and life-threatening storm surge to an area that wasn't used to hurricanes.

More than 1 million people were under mandatory evacuation orders as the storm crawled toward the East Coast.

It would soon become clear why residents had been told to leave.

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