The week in photos captures NC through the lens of News & Observer journalists
By Scott Sharpe
Volunteers distribute bottled water at a community-organized distribution site on Thursday, July 10, 2025, in downtown Mebane, after the Graham-Mebane Water Treatment Plant was damaged by flooding from Tropical Storm Chantal. Mebane residents were told Wednesday to ration water, with the city down to less than two days’ supply of clean drinking water.
Travis Long
tlong@newsobserver.com
A long holiday week started with celebration and fireworks on July Fourth and turned quickly to flooding and tragedy from severe storms just two days later. But the week ended with signs of hope from neighbors coming together to help each other in the wake of Chantal, which dumped heavy rains throughout the Triangle. This feature can be seen in Sunday’s newspaper, as well as in our online Edition. See it at eedition.newsobserver.com.
Fireworks as seen from the Lenovo Center in Raleigh on Friday evening, July 4, 2025. Travis Long tlong@newsobserver.com
The colors of a John Deere tractor match the colors of tobacco in a field in Duplin County. The bottom leaves, or lugs, are near time to be primed, meaning picked individually. Scott Sharpe ssharpe@newsobserver.com
Frameworks pick watermelons on a very hot day in a field in southeastern North Carolina, Saturday, July 5, 2025. Men working the rows would toss the melons to each other before each is tossed into a old converted school bus for transportation. Scott Sharpe ssharpe@newsobserver.com
A laundromat patron wades through fast moving water that flooded Pittsboro Elementary School Road, engulfing the Laundry Land laundromat and the Leveled Up barbershop as Tropical Storm Chantal moved across the Triangle causing flash flooding on Sunday, July 6, 2025 in Pittsboro, N.C. Robert Willett rwillett@newsobserver.com
Shaun Zucker retrieves shopping carts from the Lowes Foods parking lot in a heavy downpour as remnants of Tropical Storm Chantal move across the Triangle on Sunday, July 6, 2025 in Pittsboro, N.C. Robert Willett rwillett@newsobserver.com
A water rescue unit with the Durham Fire Department knocks on doors at Rippling Streams Townhomes in the Old Farm neighborhood along the Eno River in Durham on Monday morning, July 7, 2025, after flash flooding caused by Tropical Storm Chantal. Travis Long tlong@newsobserver.com
Marinella Mendoza and a group of contract workers discard flooded items from the Trader Joe’s in the Eastgate Shopping Center on Tuesday, July 8, 2025 in Chapel Hill, N.C. Most of the businesses in Eastgate were flooded by heavy rain from Tropical Storm Chantal on Sunday. Robert Willett rwillett@newsobserver.com
Volunteers from Day One Relief gather supplies to distribute in Durham, N.C. on Thursday, July 10, 2025. Grace Richards grichards@newsobserver.com
An aerial view of East Raleigh at sunset on Thursday, July 10, 2025, after an afternoon thunderstorm. Travis Long tlong@newsobserver.com
