(Image source from: RTE)

Florence has barreled into the Carolina coast and moved inland, knocking down trees, overflowing rivers, dumping sheets of rain and leading to the deaths of five people before it was downgraded to a tropical storm still capable of wreaking havoc.

In Wilmington, North Carolina, a mother, and her baby died when a tree fell on their home. The child's injured father was taken to a hospital. In the state's Pender County, a woman died of a heart attack; paramedics trying to reach her were blocked by debris.

In Lenoir City, a 78-year-old man was electrocuted attempting to connect extension cords while another man deceased when he was blown down by high winds while checking on his hunting dogs, a county spokesman said.

"We knew this was going to be a big storm, but it is going to be of epic proportions," North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper told a news conference in Raleigh.

Cooper cited a National Weather Service forecast that said nearly the whole state could be covered in several feet of water.

Related content: Hurricane Florence Starts to Lash U.S. East Coast

Florence had been a Category 3 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale with 120-mph winds as of Thursday, but before coming ashore it dropped to a Category 1 hurricane.

The National Hurricane Center has downgraded it to a tropical storm but warned that grave storm surges - in which water is pushed by a storm over land that would usually be dry - and catastrophic freshwater flooding were still anticipated.

The center of the hurricane's eye came ashore near Wrightsville Beach close to Wilmington, at about 7.15 a.m. EDT (1115 GMT), with sustained winds of 90 miles per hour (150 kph), the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

By yesterday evening, the center of the storm had moved to eastern South Carolina, around 15 miles northeast of Myrtle Beach, with maximum sustained winds of 70 mph.

By Sowmya Sangam