KURE BEACH, NC (WITN) – Storms battered the North Carolina coast on Monday, leaving communities scrambling to clean up on Tuesday.

During the storm, roads and driveways on Plymouth Street in Kure Beach were flooded.

Fritz Richardson, a resident of the area, was on his way home when he saw the impact. “There wasn’t really much flooding in the morning,” Richardson said. “Around 10 a.m. it started getting worse and by 1 a.m. it was completely flooded.”

Kure Beach Mayor Allen Oliver says there was continued flooding throughout the area during the storm.

“The water really had nowhere to go,” Mayor Oliver said. “Our system is not designed to handle more than about an inch of rain in a 24-hour period, so we were pretty much overwhelmed.”

Mayor Oliver says there were a lot of cars on the road that had to be towed out of the floodwaters. “There’s no telling how many cars we’ve towed out of the floodwaters,” Mayor Oliver said. “That was the biggest thing we saw, people’s cars that were flooded because they weren’t in their driveway, they were driving into it.”

While authorities are unsure how long the cleanup will take, this is a time for the community to come together and rely on each other.

“We’re a hurricane community,” Richardson said. “We’re a beach community, so everybody comes together when things like this happen. It’s just one of those events where everybody comes together and helps each other out.”

According to Oliver, the city is helping in any way it can. Residents and homeowners should contact the development and compliance department.

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