FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — The Latest on severe weather stemming from Hurricane Matthew (all times local):

8:45 a.m.

Power is slowly being restored to the hundreds of thousands of South Carolinians left without power when Hurricane Matthew hit the state over the weekend.

As of early Monday, utility outage maps show that just under a half million electric customers across the state were still in the dark.

That's down from 625,000 on Sunday and about 825,000 at the height of the storm.

Power companies say it may be several days before power can be restored to all electric customers across South Carolina.

Similar numbers were without power in North Carolina. North Carolina Emergency Management says about 491,000 residents were without service Monday morning. The state's largest utility, Duke Energy, had the biggest problems, with about 310,000 customers without service.

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Matthew is long gone from the Atlantic coast early Monday, but the devastation lingers, most notably in North Carolina, where flooded cities are trying to dry out and those downstream are keeping a close eye on rising rivers.

The flooding disaster is forecast to slowly unfold over the next several days as all that rain — more than a foot in places — flows into rivers and downstream, likely causing more inundation in many of the same places devastated by a similar deluge from Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

Thousands of people found themselves suddenly trapped in homes and cars during the torrential rains. Rescuers in Coast Guard helicopters plucked some of them from rooftops and used military vehicles to reach others.

The storm killed more than 500 people in Haiti and at least 18 in the U.S.

[STORY BY: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS]

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