A BARROVIAN forced to flee a deadly hurricane in his adopted American home city has told of the terrifying experience.

Jason Murray and his family had to evacuate their home in Wilmington , North Carolina to escape Hurricane Florence. Mr Murray, had to get out of the town as Florence made landfall at Wilmington.

The 45-year-old, wife Kelly and stepdaughter,Stella, evacuated 200 miles east to Fort Mill in South Carolina and they had been stranded from the city as the whole area has become a group of islands.

The construction industry worker, previously a Barrow shipyard employee, moved to the US in 2016. New Bern, where he works was worst hit for flooding, while his home city was worst for damage.

All his friends and family are safe and well.

The dad, who had two daughters, back in the UK, said: “I was closely monitoring Florence when she first began via a storm tracker app that I have to alert me of adverse weather conditions. The severity seemed to multiply overnight. It rose to a Category Four and was headed straight to Cape Fear. Wilmington was directly in its path so naturally it was to be taken seriously. It is one thing to see this on TV and it be on the other side of the world, but ask anyone who has experienced a hurricane and they’re massively inconvenient at best and as Florence demonstrated, they are destructive and deadly at worst.

“Kelly has experienced plenty before but the experts were saying it was going to be as bad as Hurricane Hazel in 1954 which was the worst hurricane to hit the region in recorded history.”

While the hurricane was downgraded to a Category Two by the time it made landfall in Wilmington, but by that point it didn’t really matter. It had already dumped a record amount of rainwater which with 100mph winds and storm surge from the ocean made things still as deadly and dangerous.

“Kelly’s parents live in Fort Mill, so we evacuated early to avoid chaos. Wilmington was already getting crazy with petrol pumps empty and supplies being depleted. Like something out of a movie. The stores were empty in no time. The outer bands of the hurricane reached Fort Mill but it was just really heavy rainfall for 48 hours. There was some flooding but nothing compared to the destruction the coast has suffered. “

The first recorded fatalities were a mother and baby that died after a tree fell on their house. This was in the same neighborhood as the Murray’s, just a mile and a half away from their home.

Mr Murray said: “The entire area is surrounded by giant trees. The ground water loosens up the roots and the wind blows them over. My brother -in -law Jimmy’s house had a tree come down destroy his house so the threat is not to be taken lightly. It’s a reality as the city is full of downed trees which take power lines down. A lot of the city still remains without power and/or mobile signals. Food and water were flown into Wilmington airport earlier in the week by the national guard.”