The driver, Richard Walton Robinson, was in a blue Subaru Crosstrek SUV when he drove around sheriff’s office vehicles and into high water.

Southeast North Carolina grapples with flash flooding and road washouts from what the U.S. National Hurricane Center dubbed Potential Tropical Cyclone Eight

The rain from the system had moved into southeast Virginia on Tuesday. Along North Carolina’s Outer Banks, the storm closed vulnerable coastal highway North Carolina 12 on Ocracoke Island and threatened several homes in Rodanthe, where erosion and rising sea levels have destroyed more than a half-dozen beachfront homes this decade.

On Monday at 11:25 a.m. the National Weather Service issued a flood watch valid from 8 p.m. until Tuesday 8 a.m. The watch is for Gaston, Mecklenburg, Cabarrus, Union and York counties.

More people die from floods every year than tornadoes, lightning, or hurricanes, according to the National Weather Service.

An elderly North Carolina man was found dead inside his vehicle after he drove into floodwater off the state's coast early Tuesday morning.

An eastern North Carolina man died while driving through a flooded road on Tuesday morning while a storm was drenching the area with rain. Just after midnight on Tuesday, the North Carolina State Highway Patrol (NCSHP) responded to a report of a submerged vehicle on NC 211 near Stone Chimney Road in Brunswick County.

Troopers said the man's vehicle was washed away in floodwaters at the Lockwood Folly River Bridge in Brunswick County.