The driver, Richard Walton Robinson, was in a blue Subaru Crosstrek SUV when he drove around sheriff’s office vehicles and into high water.

The rain from the system had moved into southeast Virginia on Tuesday. Along North Carolina's Outer Banks, the storm closed vulnerable coastal highway North Carolina 12 on Ocracoke Island and threatened several homes in Rodanthe, where erosion and rising sea levels have destroyed more than a half-dozen beachfront homes this decade.

It never became a tropical depression, but Potential Tropical Cyclone Eight brought rain totals like North Carolina hasn't seen in hundreds of years.