RALEIGH, N.C. _ Thirty-one North Carolina counties were declared a disaster by President Barack Obama on Monday, as the slow-motion devastation of Hurricane Matthew unfolded with rising rivers across Eastern North Carolina.
In Lumberton on Monday night, an incident at an area where rescues were happening led to a state trooper shooting and killing a man, Gov. Pat McCrory said at a Tuesday morning briefing.
McCrory gave no other details, but said the shooting happened "under very unusual circumstances."
Massive flooding and water rescues continued, and the situation could deteriorate in some towns. Lenoir County and the city of Kinston ordered a mandatory evacuation for residents along the Neuse River as flooding worsened. The Neuse in Kinston was at 20.8 feet Monday, well above its 14-foot flood stage.
Early Tuesday, officials in Moore County began evacuating people along Cane Creek, downstream of Lake Surf, because the dam holding back the lake was near ready to break, they said.
Residents also fled the town of Princeville, which was submerged by Hurricane Floyd in 1999. Evacuations even spread to prisons, where nearly 800 inmates were moved from the Neuse Correctional Institution in Goldsboro.
The storm has claimed 14 lives in North Carolina, the state Department of Public Safety said. Matthew brought as much as 16 inches of rain fell to already soaked areas. Most of the deaths occurred when motorists got swept away on flooded roads. One man died in Wake County when a tree fell on his car, McCrory said.
One more person died in a Wayne County shelter.
The state said three people were reported missing. Johnston County officials asked people to tell them of anyone who has not been accounted for since the storm passed.
Multiple swift-water-rescue crews and government and Civil Air Patrol aircraft focused on Lumberton, where people were stranded on rooftops. By early Monday, there had been more than 1,400 water rescues in North Carolina � 700 in Cumberland County alone � and they continued throughout the day and into the night.
