Flooding in North Carolina, Gordon path of tropical depression

A potential tropical system brought rainfall levels not normally seen in hundreds of years to parts of southeastern North Carolina on Monday, weather officials said, including “life-threatening flash flooding.”

The cities of Carolina Beach, Boiling Springs Lakes and Southport received more than a foot of rain in the first 12 hours of Monday, a weather event that occurs on average once every 200 years, according to the National Weather Service office in Wilmington, North Carolina.

The fact that more than 46 centimeters of rain fell on Carolina Beach within half a day “only happens once every 1,000 years,” the office said in a statement.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation on Monday urged people in affected areas to avoid driving if possible and released a photo of a collapsed and largely flooded section of road in Southport after the storm flooded dozens of streets.