Moore County residents drying out after Andrea

Scot Brooks, deputy director of the Moore County Emergency Management Division, said homes were spared from water damage, but about 15 people had to seek shelter elsewhere over the weekend. Numerous vehicles were flooded, he said.

Riverview Drive, a few miles east of Vass, was hardest hit from the storm, which dropped more than 5 inches of rain across the region Friday.

Santos Orellana recalled the rising water that lapped at the insulation beneath his mobile home, though it never seeped inside.

“The insulation started coming down,” said Orellana, who has lived in the home for 19 years.

The only way for Orellana to get to work that day was swim.

“I put the clothes in the bag…and I went swimming through here and went to work,” he said, pointing to the path he took through the high water in his yard.

Along the way, he found a duck swimming around his yard, following him everywhere. He took it in as a pet.

Not all the floodwater had receded by Monday, and plenty of puddles remained. But people in Riverview are used to floods. They neighborhood lies between Little River and Crains Creek.

“We knew it was going to start flooding, so we started moving everything out of the shop,” said resident Brian Friday, who has seen the floods of Hurricane Floyd and Hurricane Fran and other named storms of years past.

But this weekend's flood was his high-water mark, reaching the second layer of brick on his foundation. His backyard was “completely covered.”

“Thank God it never got into the house and everything,” Friday said.

Water spilled into his garage, slightly damaging the replica John Deere tractor he made out of 1,530 aluminum cans.