Miami, Oct. 10 — At least 10 people have died in North Carolina due to flooding associated with Hurricane Matthew, which has been blamed for a score of fatalities since it began battering the southeastern U.S. coast last week.

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory said Monday that 10 people had died in that state, five others were missing and 1,500 remained stranded due to the floods.

One of the victims was a woman whose car was swept away by the floodwaters in Johnston County, according to McCrory, who said hundreds of others were waiting to be rescued in Robeson County, some on the roofs of their homes.

The priority is to evacuate those people, the governor said, urging residents to exercise caution when riding through flooded areas and reminding them that several swamped roads and highways are still closed.

The Federal Aviation Administration also has ordered flight restrictions over flooded areas to facilitate the work of rescue helicopters, according to McCrory, who warned that several rivers swollen from storm surge could overflow their banks and cause further flooding and more power outages.

At least 500,000 customers are currently without electricity service, he noted.

Matthew has brought torrential rain and widespread flooding, as well as powerful winds and storm surges, to several Caribbean nations, the Bahamas and the southeastern United States and been blamed for hundreds of deaths, most of them in the impoverished Caribbean nation of Haiti.

It continued to batter coastal North Carolina on Sunday as a post-tropical cyclone, after having earlier caused at least 10 deaths in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina as a hurricane.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott, for his part, on Monday activated an emergency bridge loan program to provide assistance to small businesses affected by Matthew.

“While Floridians across the state did all they could to prepare for Hurricane Matthew, this was a massive and devastating storm that caused heavy damage throughout our state,” Scott said in a press release. EFE