Floods from Hurricane Florence are so intense that they've totally cut off the city where it made landfall

REUTERS/Jonathan Drake

An abandoned car's hazard lights continue to flash as it sits submerged in a rising flood waters after Hurricane Florence struck in Wilmington, North Carolina.

• Wilmington, North Carolina, has been cut off from the rest of the state thanks to Hurricane Florence's floodwaters, which are still rising.
• Officials are looking to fly goods into the city, and police have been standing guard outside of at least one store that is still open.
• Police received more than 800 emergency calls in 30 hours, and an official curfew is in place after cases of looting.
• They warned Wilmington residents who had evacuated not to return to the city yet.

The city of Wilmington has been cut off from the rest of North Carolina as surging flood waters from Hurricane Florence continue to damage the state.

Flood waters in Wilmington, home to 120,000 people, are still rising. County commission chairman Woody White said officials were planning for food and water to be flown into the coastal city, the Associated Press reported.

"Our roads are flooded," he said. "There is no access to Wilmington."

Hurricane Florence made landfall in Wilmington on Friday, and the town has born some of the most catastrophic effects from the storm, which is now a Tropical Depression.

Google; Business Insider

A map showing the point at which Hurricane Florence made landfall, and the predicted path of the storm at the time.

Residents waited for hours outside stores and restaurants for basic necessities like water, according to the Associated Press. Police were guarding the door of one store, AP said, which would only let 10 people in at a time.

Wilmington is the eighth-largest city in North Carolina. Around 400 people have had to be rescued from flood waters in the city, which remains mostly without power.

On Sunday, Wilmington Police said it had received more than 800 emergency calls in a 30-hour period.

While an evacuation order was in place for more than a million people across a number of states, it was not clear how many people did, or could, evacuate.

Local police warned Wilmington residents who had evacuated not to return to the city yet.

At least 17 people have been killed by the storm. Florence threatens to bring even worse conditions to the Carolinas as it continues to dump water, even as it has officially been downgraded to a tropical depression.

An official curfew is in place in Wilmington following looting in the area. An 8pm curfew was in place on Sunday.

Wilmington Police arrested five people in Saturday after a Dollar Store in the city was looted.