RALEIGH, N.C. _ Rising rivers caused more misery across eastern North Carolina on Tuesday, where the Hurricane Matthew death toll climbed to 18 and residents in shelters feared for their homes.
Major roads were still closed in places, and water rescues continued. There was progress on power restoration, as outages slowly declined to 190,000 from Sunday's peak of 800,000.
The scale of the disaster was enormous and shifting, as waters rose in some areas and receded in others. Conditions will worsen along the banks of the Tar and Neuse rivers, which will crest in eastern North Carolina towns in the next three days _ almost a week since the hurricane pounded an already saturated state with more than a foot of rain.
Most of the 18 deaths occurred from drowning, as motorists were swept away on flooded roads, Gov. Pat McCrory said in briefings. One man died in Wake County when a tree fell on his car.
"This is terrible news," McCrory said late Tuesday, warning drivers not to look for shortcuts around roads blocked off because of flooding. That endangers first responders, he said, suggesting that officials would not send rescuers into situations that seemed too dangerous for them.
"Do not go through water!" the governor said. "We're not messing around."
More than 2,000 people had been rescued by swift-water teams in the eastern part of the state, mostly in Robeson and Cumberland counties. More than 400 high-water and rescue vehicles had been deployed, and 90 helicopter rescues had been conducted.
During the flooding in Lumberton, a state trooper shot and killed a man Monday night. The shooting happened about 8 p.m. on Fifth Street, where two Robeson sheriff's deputies were conducting search-and-rescue operations with a patrol sergeant, the State Highway Patrol said in a news release. A man displayed a handgun and became hostile to the officers, the patrol said, and was then fatally shot by the sergeant, who was identified as J.F. Hinson, a 13-year veteran. The man who died was not identified; the shooting is being reviewed by the State Bureau of Investigation.
Elsewhere, Lenoir County and Kinston were under mandatory evacuation orders for residents near the Neuse River. Early Tuesday, officials in Moore County began evacuating people downstream of Lake Surf, because the dam holding back the lake was nearly ready to break, they said. Sandbags were piled at the dam to stabilize it, but the National Weather Service kept a flash-flood warning in effect.
About 4,000 people were in emergency shelters in central and eastern North Carolina _ a quarter of those in the Lumberton area.
It's clear North Carolina has a long recovery ahead.
McCrory said he requested federal assistance for individuals as well as state and local governments for 66 counties. On Monday, 10 counties were approved for individual federal assistance and 31 counties were approved for public federal assistance. Late Tuesday, word came that federal aid would be available to individuals in four additional counties _ Bertie, Johnston, Wayne and Wilson. Also, people in Beaufort, Bladen, Columbus, Cumberland, Edgecombe, Hoke, Lenoir, Nash, Pitt and Robeson counties are eligible for federal help.
Water and power returned to most parts of Johnston County on Tuesday, but those on county water service still were under a boil advisory. Johnston County Schools canceled class for students for the rest of the week. Johnston was hard hit, with hundreds of rescues and three fatalities.
The flooding could continue for several days as rivers and creeks swell. The Neuse River crested in Goldsboro on Tuesday night at a record 29 feet, while the Tar River is expected to rise to 35 feet in Tarboro on Wednesday afternoon and 25 feet in Greenville on Wednesday night. The Neuse is forecast to rise to 27 feet on Friday.
At an emergency shelter at Tarboro High School, which housed 140 people Monday night, those who had been evacuated from Princeville and Tarboro along the Tar River worried about their homes. Many had lived there when Hurricane Floyd flooded them out in 1999.
"Not knowing exactly what the next move is going to be, that's hard," said Regina Brooks, a 27-year-old Princeville resident who had been staying in the shelter with her 1-year-old and 2-year-old daughters and her mother since Sunday.
Just a few streets away, closer to the river that divides Princeville from Tarboro, emergency vehicles blocked both ends of the bridge that links the two Edgecombe County towns.
But on a warm October day, with clear blue skies and temperatures in the high 60s, many residents walked across the bridge, taking pictures of the swift-moving Tar River and comparing its spillover to Hurricane Floyd in 1999.
Rick Page, a former Tarboro mayor who also was a utility director when Floyd spurred massive flooding, said the Tar River was not as high Tuesday as it had been after Floyd. He pointed to a grassy dike on the Princeville side. If the river spilled over the dike, he said, that would mean big trouble for the Princeville residents.
But the people on the bridge watched the water and hoped for the best.
