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Neuse River in Lenoir County continues to rise

The Neuse River through Lenoir County is expected to continue rising through Saturday morning when forecasters predict it will crest at 25 feet. Forecasters predict it will stay that way for 12-to-24 hours before slowly receding. As of this morning, the water had risen to almost 23 feet. At a press conference this morning, county emergency services director Roger Dail told reporters officials expect rising floodwaters to eventually block access to Highway 258…

     “We can’t tell you when. We don’t know. It will close whenever, obviously, the water comes across. We get asked about Highway 70. It’s going to be very tight. There’s a possibility we might. But again, there are routes that DOT is working on with highway patrol to get people around some of this stuff.” 

Dail says Contentea Creek in northern Lenoir County crested sometime overnight or early this morning. He says there’s still flooding in that area and residents should be out by now. Dail says more than 100 people in the county have been pulled out of floodwaters, but officials don’t yet have an exact number of swift water rescues.

George Olsen is a 1977 Havelock High School graduate. He received his B.A. in Broadcast Journalism from the University of South Carolina in 1982 where he got his first taste of non-commercial radio working for their student station WUSC. After graduation he worked about five years in commercial radio before coming to work at Public Radio East where he has remained since outside of a nearly 3-year stint as jazz and operations coordinator at WUAL in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in the early 1990s. On his return to eastern North Carolina he hosted classical music for Public Radio East before moving into the Morning Edition host position and now can be heard on All Things Considered. He also hosts and produces The Sound, five hours of Americana, Roots Rock and Contemporary Folk weekday evenings on PRE Public Radio East News & Ideas, and is a news and feature producer for Public Radio East.