$257 billion in chinese goods. jillian: hair clippers. 32 people killed in the wake of hurricane florence as rescuers race to save survivors from their flooded homes. entire communities are cut off by this historic flooding. rob: one of those places is politics bill, north carolina where we find griff jenkins as the water continues to rise. any sense that is the case? reporter: these rivers because of prolonged storm surge and epic rainfall, taking these communities, cutting them off. polluxville is south of newburgh, underwater, totally cut off, it is the lumber river in lumberton and the trent river the crested beyond record that was hit during hurricane floyd in 1999. when we came up here, 150 to 200
62 plus feet. that s a tremendous amount. i m in downtown fayetteville. let me step out of the way and we ll take a look in. you can see the flow of the water as the water is going into downtown. as the water flows in, it s coming and rising at about two inches an hour. you have cross creek. you have the cape fear river. you have the lumber river in lumberton. one of the levees gave way. they had to evacuate, well it s a town of 22,000. people just got out. in this community here, they have seven municipal shelters open, a private church shelter open. people have left. if this is the river, a mile this side and that side, they have left. they know the water is going to broaden out. we have homes under water here already. the biggest question is, people don t understand how flood insurance works until you go through it. you have homeowners insurance
quickly growing very dangerous. for many people in low lying areas near the lumber river in lumberton, north carolina. cnn s polo sandoval is joining us on the phone. he s calling in because of safety issues. polo, gives an update. reporter: martin, what we ve been seeing, the lumber river continues to worsen, disturbingly similar to what i witnessed about two years ago when hurricane matthew made for an extremely dangerous situation in this same area, where many people lost their homes. we re witnessing the lumber river continuing to rise, currently flowing at 17 1/2 feet. it has at least seven more feet to go, according to the current forecast. my colleagues and i drove through the streets of lumberton today and we reached a point where we couldn t press forward anymore because of the danger.