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Many NC Roads Shut Down By Florence Have Re-Opened, More Than A Hundred Remain Closed

Ben McKeown

Highway officials outlined their Hurricane Florence response and recovery efforts for a house committee in Raleigh this week.

State Department of Transportation Secretary James Trogdon told lawmakers the catastrophic storm dumped an estimated 8 trillion gallons of rain on the state, equivalent to more than 1 trillion cubic feet of water.

"So Florence would have filled Jordan Lake 536 times," Trogdon told committee members.

Many roads have re-opened but not all of them, said Trogdon.

"We have three U.S. routes, seven North Carolina primaries, and a total of 126 routes still closed," Trogdon said. "Most of that, predominantly, is damage, less flood, and that, you know, is down significantly from the peak at about 1,700."

Trogdon said recovery efforts required shifting 40 crews from the central and western parts of the state to the hardest hit areas farther east, including Carteret, New Hanover, and Cumberland Counties.

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Rusty Jacobs is WUNC's Voting and Election Integrity Reporter.
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