According to Colleen Roberts, a spokeswoman for the city, 150 people were waiting to be rescued Friday morning after about 200 were rescued overnight.
"WE ARE COMING TO GET YOU," a tweet from the city overnight said. "You may need to move up to the second story, or to your attic, but WE ARE COMING TO GET YOU."
According to CNN meteorologists, as of early Friday morning, New Bern had already seen more than 10 feet of storm surge and more than 7 inches of rainfall.
New Bern, home to approximately 30,000 people, sits about 37 miles northeast of Jacksonville, North Carolina, on the banks of the Neuse River. On Thursday, a CNN team in the area watched as the water crested over the edge of the river and flooded Union Point Park in a matter of hours.
New Bern resident Peggy Perry told CNN she and three relatives were trapped inside her home early Friday.
"In a matter of seconds, my house was flooded up to the waist, and now it is to the chest," she said. "We are stuck in the attic."
"We have been up here for like three or four hours," Perry added, "and there's no windows up here in the attic, so I put a light in the window so they would know someone's here."
Roberts said rescuers were facing very challenging conditions, but assured residents help was on the way.
"We tell them to remain calm, not to panic, we will rescue them," Roberts said. "Again, we're having to be strategic about it."
The storm surge had decreased to about 8 feet later Friday morning, Roberts said, but that was mostly attributed to changes in the Neuse River's tide.
"And when the tide comes back up around noon, we will be inundated with additional storm surge," she said. "So we really have a new hustle this morning to get the rest of those 150 people out."
According to Roberts, citizen volunteers with their own boats had offered to help the city coordinate rescues.
"We are not turning away that help," she said.
Among those volunteers was the Cajun Navy, a volunteer rescue organization formed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Organizer Clyde Cain, told CNN the Cajun Navy was staged in New Bern and had received more than 500 calls for assistance.
Amber Parker, a spokeswoman for Craven County, where New Bern is located, told CNN early Friday morning the county had already logged more than 100 service calls from residents trapped on their roofs or in their cars.
The county had been conducting water rescues since Thursday, Parker said.
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