Power Slowly Being Restored In South Carolina After Hurricane Matthew

LUMBERTON, N.C. (AP) — The Latest on Hurricane Matthew (all times local):

8:20 a.m.

Power is slowly flowing back to South Carolina homes left in the dark after Hurricane Matthew hammered the state.

Utility company outage maps show that as of early Tuesday, just over 300,000 customers across the state remain without power. That's down from about 400,000 late Monday and down from the total of about 850,000 customers who lost power during last weekend's storm.

It's expected to be several days before power is restored.

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7:55 a.m.

Officials in North Carolina say a dam that's been in danger of a breech following Hurricane Matthew is holding, so far.

Deputy Public Safety Director Scott Brooks says crews worked until about 2 a.m. Tuesday to get sandbags in place to reduce the threat at Woodlake Dam in Moore County near Vass.

Brooks said crews would be out again later Tuesday morning to finish. He says the work will need to be inspected before residents can return home.

Brooks says he doesn't know how quickly that inspection can occur. He says the evacuation ordered late Monday is the second in the last three days.

The National Weather Service has issued a flash flood warning for the area in Moore County, as well as Hoke and Cumberland counties because of the danger a dam failure would pose.

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7:35 a.m.

Officials are waiting for all train tracks to be checked before freight trains can resume service from Georgia to North Carolina, following Hurricane Matthew.

CSX Transportation spokeswoman Kristin Seay told The Fayetteville Observer on Monday that some railroad ties and rail lines were washed out from the hurricane's torrential rains over the weekend.

A statement on the CSX website says the company is working to restore rail lines, but service remains suspended from Savannah, Georgia, to Pembroke, North Carolina.

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3:30 a.m.

Helicopters and rescue boats are expected to return to work in North Carolina looking for people stranded by flooding after the heavy rains dumped by Hurricane Matthew.

Rescue teams will be back at work across eastern North Carolina on Tuesday as the deluge rolls downstream toward the Atlantic Ocean. At least three rivers were forecast to reach record levels, some not cresting until Friday.

The full extent of the disaster in North Carolina is still unclear, but it appears that thousands of homes were damaged, and more are in danger of flooding.

The storm killed more than 500 people in Haiti and at least 23 in the U.S. — nearly half of them in North Carolina. At least three people were missing.

[STORY BY: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS]