Mother Riding out Hurricane at Home With 5 Children Gives First Hand Account of Florence's Power

A mother who is currently riding out Hurricane Florence at home with her five children has been giving a first hand account of the storms power.

ABC News reports that Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina native Melissa Cellucci told them that she and her kids have been hunkered down in their house while her EMT husband has been on lockdown at Hanover County Regional Medical Center.

"It's crazy and frightening. We've been watching trees being torn down and our backyard fence get ripped apart all morning from the winds," Cellucci said, describing what she's seen the category storm due just around her own property.

Here is a new Mesoscale Precipitation Discussion from @NWSWPC on heavy rainfall and flash flooding associated with #Florence. Catastrophic flash flooding is expected to worsen today across Southeast NC and Northeast SC //t.co/NZfE2BANOv pic.twitter.com/SygyoMoLrF

— National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) September 14, 2018

"The whole back side [of the fence] is all demolished. I saw two 20-foot sections getting busted up because the winds are so strong and powerful," she added.

WATCH: Video shows severe flooding in North Carolina, where #HurricaneFlorence made landfall with howling 90 mph winds, terrifying storm surge //t.co/92yVfE76wQ pic.twitter.com/tsNslp9YpJ

— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) September 14, 2018

When asked why they stayed at home to ride out the storm rather than evacuating, Cellucci said that her husband was the one to make the tough call.

"With having five kids and my husband's stuck at work on standby for his job at the hospital it was just easier for us to stay at our home where we have all of our things," she said.

"We have a safe place here at our home and a generator and we have supplies, so we felt that we could be safe here just riding it out," Cellucci added.

"The Saffir-Simpson scale does not address the potential for other hurricane-related impacts, such as storm surge, rainfall-induced floods, and tornadoes". The downgrade from 4 to 2, meant some evacuees returned to their homes. #florence #riskcomm //t.co/mw0Rq4fj1w pic.twitter.com/BjeUSyhK7F

— Coast & Ocean Risk Communication (@CORC_CoP) September 14, 2018

She went to say that she did not start to get worried until about 3 a.m. when the power went out and she wasn't able to get the generator restarted.

"When the wind picked up it got really spooky and scary," Cellucci added. "I really didn't get any sleep, I needed to be up in case anything happened."

The mother-of-five went on to explain that she and her family have only ever been through one other hurricane, so the whole experience has been eye-opening.

"It's kind of new to us what a hurricane would mean so our anxiety was high getting stuff ready," she confessed, adding, "The rain's really picked up, and just stepping outside a little bit ago the trees are really blowing and bending. We have large pine trees in our backyard, and they're really bending a lot. The wind is howling away. I could hear it from inside the house."

At this time, Hurricane Florence has been downgraded to a category one storm, but is still extremely dangerous, nonetheless.