Hurricane Florence officially made landfall on the east coast of the United States in North Carolina at 7:15 a.m. (11 a.m. GMT) with maximum winds of 90 miles per hour, the National Hurricane Center said in a statement on Friday

Hurricane Florence officially made landfall on the east coast of the United States in North Carolina at 7:15 a.m. (11 a.m. GMT) with maximum winds of 90 miles per hour, the National Hurricane Center said in a statement on Friday.

Rain, wind and rising floodwaters from Hurricane Florence swamped the Carolinas early on Friday as the massive storm crawled toward the coast, threatening millions of people with record rainfall and punishing surf, Reuters reported on Friday.

The maximum wind speeds of Hurricane Florence, facing the US east coast, have weakened to 90 miles per hour making it a Category 1 storm, the US National Hurricane Center's data showed on Friday.

A dangerous Hurricane Florence is approaching the US coast from the Atlantic Ocean and can strike the coast of South and North Carolina as early as on Friday.

US President Donald Trump is still trying to deny that thousands of Americans were killed in Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico last year as the country is bracing for another storm, House Democrats said in a Twitter post on Thursday.

Inventories of gasoline in lower Atlantic US states in the path of Hurricane Florence have begun declining amid surging demand by motorists evacuating the area, with further declines expected as the storm makes landfall, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in a press release on Thursday.

Hurricane Florence has been downgraded to a Category 2 storm but is expected to bring a "life-threatening storm surge" and heavy rainfall as it approaches the US state of North Carolina, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said in its advisory on Thursday.