For the Southeastern United States, hurricane season means flooding, increased home insurance and trips to depleted shopping centers.

Wake Tech community college student Emma Selvaggio from central North Carolina experienced the chaos of what life is like during a natural disaster.  

Hurricane Florence hit the East coast Thursday night and had reached her area early on Friday, showing

massive effects.

“Here were already tree branches all over the streets and sidewalks late Friday morning,” Selvaggio said.“I had never seen anything like this. The lines were coming out of the gas station and onto the road, almost wrapping around the block.”

In her area, very few people evacuated, but they were advised to stock up on water, batteries, nonperishable food, flashlights, gas, medications and pet supplies.  

Selvaggio said she “…went to Target to prepare for the hurricane and there was no water, literally none in the entire store.”

People scrambled to shop before the storm hit to prepare for the torrential rainfall.  Areas near the coast and by the rivers had such disastrous flooding that roads are completely closed.

Schools in the southeast have been closed since Wednesday before Florence and are still closed as of Monday.  

Selvaggio said areas near the coast got a few feet of rain initially, and it continued to rain for the next two days.  

She reports no affected houses in her town, but across the state, there are thousands affected.  

It is confirmed that there have been 36 casualties due to Florence.  

Over 343,000 people were without power in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.  

The biggest predator is the flash flooding.  

It claims all homes, cars, people and nature in its path.

Also, flood damage is not covered by most insurances, so the only way people can get back their belongings is by hard work and donations from the more fortunate.

If you want to help support those devastated by Hurricane Florence, the best place to donate is to visit gofundme.com

It directly supports the people who make the fundraisers instead of going through a third party company.

Another excellent way is by donating food and clothing to private pop-up centers, like the one powered by Bailey Coach in West Manchester Country, PA . 

The Food Bank of Central and Eastern Carolina have a virtual food donation service which allows you to buy food online to be donated to victims.

The American Red Cross in York, PA also accepts blood and cars as donations.  You can make monetary donations on redcross.org or globalgiving.org .