Two people were killed as subtropical storm Alberto’s strong surf, powerful wind gusts and heavy rains tore across the Gulf of Mexico coast and swamped the Southeast, officials and forecasters said Monday.
Alberto, the first named storm of the hurricane season, made landfall on Florida’s Panhandle on Monday afternoon, washing out the unofficial start of summer.
In Polk County, North Carolina, two television journalists were killed when a tree fell on their vehicle, state Trooper Rico Stephens said. Their station, NBC affiliate WYFF of Greenville, South Carolina, identified them as anchor Mike McCormick and photographer Aaron Smeltzer.
“All of us at WYFF News 4 are grieving,” the station said in a tweet. “We are a family.”
Tryon Fire Chief Geoff Tennant added that he’d done an interview with McCormick shortly before his death.
“We had talked a little bit about how he wanted us to stay safe and how we wanted him to stay safe,” Tyron told reporters. “Of course, 10, 15 minutes later we get the call and it was him and his photographer.”
Polk County warned in a Facebook post that the area where the incident occurred — just north of the South Carolina state line — had become dangerous and more flash flooding was possible through Wednesday.
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