The Weather Channel is reminding North Carolina residents in the path of Hurricane Florence to heed evacuation warnings before it's too late.
And nothing is more motivational than a virtual reality demonstration of the monster storm's devastating effects.
To incentivize residents to pack their bags, the Weather Channel provided a digital rendering of the flood occurring on typical dry land, engulfing the meteorologist.
Take a look at the YouTube video, below:
The presentation is called "immersive mixed reality," according to Ren LaForme, who reported on the video for Poynter.
The convincing digital portrayal was created in partnership with the augmented reality company, The Future Group, by using Unreal Engine to render the graphics that looked all too real for many North Carolina residents.
Unreal Engine is a popular video game developer known for creating "Fortnite" and "Ark: Survival Evolved."
"Rather than creating effects and rendering them in post-production, the process used to create visuals for most films, the Unreal Engine builds effects in real time."
Michael Potts, vice president of design at The Weather Channel, hopes the visual aid will be more effective in conveying the urgency of safety precautions during the storm.
Potts stated:
"The takeaway is that there are ways to remain safe, to have a plan, and to see all that valuable information in a way that isn't just four lines on a chart."
The presentation is really driving the point home for viewers in the Carolinas and beyond.
Water levels indeed rose as the storm slowly moved inland. The devastation is immediately evident and heartbreaking.
"You can walk faster than this storm is moving," said Wilmington, North Carolina's mayor, Bill Saffo. While the storm stalls it continues to drop rain in the affected areas, raising water levels even more.
Many of the beautiful trees in Wilmington were ravaged by the flood and disappeared.
Meteorologist Marshall Shepherd told The Verge that the hurricane bringing torrential downpour of rain is "a recipe for a flooding disaster."
The National Hurricane Center predicted Florence will bring deadly storm surges resulting in flood levels up to 11 feet high.
To give their statistics a visual reference people could relate to, the NHC provided an illustration showing the varying heights at which the flood can reach by using a home occupied by a family. In the storm surge flooding chart, a nine-foot water level is indicated as red and can easily submerge a single-floor household.
As of Friday, 600,000 homes were without power and 2,100 flights into North Carolina canceled through Saturday.
