HUGER, S.C. — Days of rain forced deluge-hardened residents of a South Carolina community to begin the almost ritualistic task of assessing the damage left by Tropical Storm Debby, which continued to spin over the Atlantic Ocean and influence storms from the East Coast to the Great Lakes Wednesday.
In Huger, about 15 miles northeast of Charleston, Gene Taylor waited in the afternoon for a few inches of water to flow away from his house along French Quarter Creek as high tide passed.
Taylor saw the flood risk last week and began moving his belongings outside or higher up in his home. It’s a lesson he’s learned the hard way: Taylor estimates this is the fourth time he’s had floodwaters in his home in the last nine years.
“To save everything, we’ve learned from the past that it’s better to prepare for the worst. And unfortunately, I think we got it,” Taylor said.
A few doors down, Charles Grainger was cleaning up after about eight inches of water had seeped into his house.
“A fall of eight inches disrupts your whole life,” Grainger said. “You don’t get used to it. You just grin and bear it. It’s part of life on the river.”
The National Hurricane Center warned that isolated areas could receive up to 25 inches (64 centimeters) of rain from Debby.
In Georgia, at least four dams have failed northwest of Savannah in Bulloch County, but no deaths have been reported so far, authorities said in a briefing.
More than 75 people have been rescued from floodwaters in the county, said Corey Kemp, emergency management director, and about 100 roads have been closed.
“We’ve been faced with a lot of situations that we’ve never faced before,” said Roy Thompson, chairman of the Bulloch County Commission. “I’m over 78 years old and I’ve never seen anything like this before in Bulloch County. It’s unbelievable what’s happened and what’s going to continue to happen until all this water is removed from here.”
For residents of Tappan Zee Drive in the Pooler suburb of Savannah, Georgia, the flooding from Debby was accompanied by a painful sense of déjà vu. In October 2016, Hurricane Matthew caused a nearby canal to overflow and flood many of those same homes.
Located about 50 kilometers from the Atlantic Ocean, with no nearby streams or rivers, the neighborhood does not appear to be a high-risk area for tropical flooding. But residents say drainage problems have plagued their street for more than a decade, despite efforts by the local government to fix them.
Debby also dumped rain on communities as far as the Great Lakes, New York and New Jersey. Moisture from the tropical storm strengthened another system Tuesday night, which brought severe thunderstorms, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Scott Kleebauer.
“We had a period of multiple rounds of showers and thunderstorms that moved from Michigan eastward,” Kleebauer said.
In less than four hours, up to six inches of rain fell in parts of New Jersey.
New York authorities have warned of the risk of flash flooding, flying drones equipped with loudspeakers in some neighborhoods to warn basement dwellers to be ready to flee at a moment’s notice. Several sea rescue operations have been reported in and around the city.
Nearly 330,000 customers were still without power in Ohio Wednesday afternoon following severe storms, according to PowerOutage.us. Officials with FirstEnergy’s Illuminating Company said via social media that restoring power would take several days due to the damage.
In South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster said his state was entering the second act of a three-act play after more than 60 homes were damaged but roads and water systems had no major problems.
“We’ve been lucky so far. Things are not as bad as they could have been,” McMaster said.
Act 2 was expected to arrive Thursday night, when Debby returns to the coast and heavy rains return, this time to the northern coast and inland. Another 4 to 8 inches of rain could fall, according to John Quagliariello, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Columbia.
“It may not be as catastrophic as we were saying, but we still think that as these rain bands develop, they could stay over the same area for long periods of time, produce a lot of precipitation and a lot of flooding,” Quagliariello said.
The final act could come next week if enough rain falls upstream in North Carolina to cause major flooding along rivers that flow into the Atlantic Ocean.
Debby’s center was over the Atlantic Wednesday night, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) east-southeast of Charleston, the National Hurricane Center said. The storm first made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane early Monday along Florida’s Gulf Coast.
States of emergency were in effect in North Carolina and Virginia. Maryland issued a declaration of preparedness that coordinates preparations without declaring a state of emergency.
At least six people died in the storm, including five in car accidents or from falling trees. The sixth death was a 48-year-old man from Gulfport, Florida, whose body was recovered after his anchored sailboat partially sank.
In Charleston, South Carolina, the Brown Dog Deli closed early Monday and couldn’t open Tuesday because of a curfew imposed by local authorities. On Wednesday, the lunch crowd rushed in after days of storm preparations and stay-at-home orders. The first words from the person who answered the phone were, “Yes, we’re open.”
“We have a lot of locals coming in after being cooped up for two days looking for a good meal,” said kitchen manager Liz Denney.
Some of the water was able to bypass the sandbags that workers placed Monday, but the restaurant has experienced more severe flooding at other times in the past year, Denney said. Standing water and occasional outages, she added, are part of life on the coast.
“It’s part of the job,” Denney said.
Jeffrey Collins reported from Columbia, South Carolina. Associated Press reporters Russ Bynum in Pooler, Georgia; Bruce Shipkowski in Toms River, New Jersey; and Jeff Martin in Atlanta contributed reporting.
