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Body Of 1-Year-Old Swept Away By Florence Floodwaters In North Carolina Found

WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) -- Authorities recover body of 1-year-old boy swept away by floodwaters in North Carolina; child slipped from mom's grip.

8:55 a.m.: Authorities are searching for a 1-year-old boy who was swept away by floodwaters in North Carolina after the boy's mother lost her grip on him.

Union County Sheriff's Office spokesman Tony Underwood said a woman and her child were on their way to visit relatives when she drove past some barricades on highway 218 in northern Union County. The woman later told authorities someone had pushed the barricades to the side a little, making her think it was OK to go through.

Kaiden Lee-Welch
Courtesy: Union County Sheriff's Office, Monroe, NC

The woman's car was swept off the road by the floodwaters, pinning it against a group of trees. She was able to free 1-year-old Kaiden Lee-Welch from his car seat and escape. But the waters were deep, and Underwood said the woman lost her grip and her son was swept away.

6:20 a.m.: A train has derailed in North Carolina, but it's not clear whether it was storm-related.

WBTV reports that the CSX train derailed Sunday evening in Anson County, east of the state's largest city of Charlotte.

The station says the derailment led to at least one road closure.

The station cites CSX officials as saying that the derailment involved several cars on a train headed to Hamlet, North Carolina.

Officials have reported flooding caused by Tropical Storm Florence in Union County, located between Charlotte and Anson County.

They did not say whether there were any injuries or what the train was carrying.

1 a.m.: With Wilmington cut off from the rest of North Carolina by still-rising floodwaters from Florence, officials plan to airlift food and water to a city of nearly 120,000 people as rescuers elsewhere pull inland residents from homes threatened by swollen rivers.

The spreading disaster claimed additional lives Sunday, with at least 17 people confirmed dead, and the nation's top emergency official said other states were in the path this week.

Brock Long of the Federal Emergency Management Agency says not only to expect more impacts in North Carolina, but also "you are about to see a lot of damage going through West Virginia, all the way up to Ohio as the system exits out."

In Wilmington, the state's eighth-largest city, residents waited for hours outside stores and restaurants on Sunday for basic necessities like water. Police guarded the door of one store, and only 10 people were allowed inside at a time.

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(© Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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