Parts of southeastern North Carolina remained underwater Tuesday after a storm that was not organized enough to deliver historic amounts of rain to an area that has suffered at least four one-time floods in the past 25 years.

Flash flooding closed dozens of roads in Brunswick County, including U.S. Highway 17, the main coastal route. Floodwaters overtopped the highway at various points for much of the day, leaving some drivers stranded on high ground that turned into an island.

Emergency workers brought food and water to people as they waited for the floodwaters to recede, Brunswick County emergency officials said. No deaths were reported, but dozens of roads in the county were damaged and many were washed away.

Monday’s deluge was concentrated on Carolina Beach south of Wilmington, where more than 18 inches (46 centimeters) of rain fell in 12 hours. That amount of rain in that period qualifies as a so-called 1,000-year flood, which is expected only once in that time, according to meteorologists at the National Weather Service office in Wilmington.

Several blocks of the coastal city were under water up to the bottoms of car doors for hours Monday as the system, known as Potential Tropical Cyclone No. 8, was not organized enough to become the eighth tropical storm of the season, Helene.

It is certainly not the first historic flood in the region.

Hurricane Diana brought more than 18 inches of rain to the area in 1984. According to meteorologists, it was the first time a tropical event had dropped 12 inches of rain.

Since then, the area just southwest of Wilmington has received 20 inches (51 centimeters) of rain during Hurricane Floyd in 1999, which was once the norm for heavy rainfall.

An unnamed storm after Hurricane Matthew in 2010 dropped about 11 inches (28 centimeters) of rain in Brunswick County, and a deluge in 2015, when Hurricane Joaquin passed far offshore, dropped 20 inches (51 centimeters).

And in 2018, Hurricane Florence brought flooding to the region that is now at historic levels, with 29 inches (72 centimeters) of rain falling.

According to Tim Armstrong, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wilmington, the blame for the flooding we’ve been experiencing for a lifetime can be laid at the door of rising temperatures caused by climate change.

“The warmer the air, the more moisture it can hold,” Armstrong said Tuesday.

As the three massive floods from unknown storms show, it doesn’t take a powerful hurricane, just the right combination of atmospheric factors, to cause major flooding in small areas.

“The worst of Monday’s flooding was concentrated in just parts of two counties,” Armstrong said.

Rain from the system had moved into southeastern Virginia by Tuesday. Along North Carolina’s Outer Banks, the storm closed vulnerable coastal highway North Carolina 12 on Ocracoke Island and threatened several homes in Rodanthe, where erosion and rising sea levels have destroyed more than a half-dozen beachfront homes this decade.

The Atlantic hurricane season lasts until late November.

In an updated hurricane forecast last month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration still predicted a very active season thanks to near-record sea surface temperatures and the possibility of La Niña. Emergency officials urged people to stay prepared.

Elsewhere in the Atlantic, Gordon remained a tropical depression as it swirled through open ocean waters. Gordon could dissipate or restrengthen as a tropical storm in the coming days, meteorologists said.