Post-tropical cyclone Ian batters South Carolina, causes storm surge | USA TODAY

Ian started trekking through the Carolinas Friday, hammering the coast of South Carolina with flooding as it made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane, then taking aim at North Carolina as a post-tropical cyclone.

The second landfall on the U.S. mainland came as Floridians surveyed the damage days after the storm battered the state. Ian is expected to wreak havoc on numerous states along the East Coast as it moves inland over the weekend.

In South Carolina, trees have been toppled, roads flooded and over 69,000 households had already lost power, officials said at a Friday news conference. That number had risen to over 180,000 customers without power immediately after landfall, according to poweroutage.us. The state's five shelters were at 15% capacity ahead of landfall.