FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. On Monday, amid a mandatory evacuation order , residents of this inland city of around 200,000 flocked to a bridge east of town to gaze at the rapidly rising Cape Fear River.

Under the first blue skies in days, they took pictures of large trees and other debris that made its way south down a wide and muddy river toward the Atlantic coast. And they were reminded of the devastating scenes less than two years ago during Hurricane Matthew, when the town was severely flooded and hundreds of residents had to be rescued from inundated buildings.

I came [here] for Matthew, said Laura Walters, a lifelong Fayetteville resident, as she looked out over the raging river with her dog. Just watching it, you know, its history.

Dulles Faircloth, 68, remembers his father telling stories about the Cape Fear Flood of 1945 . But the deluge from Florence is unlike anything hes ever seen. He marveled at the slow-moving hurricane, calling it the storm of the century, and at the Cape Fear Rivers power.

This old river here can tell a lot of stories, he said as he looked down at it Monday.

There are a lot of tears in that river.