As Tropical Storm Debby As the heavy rains move northward, they could cause catastrophic flooding in parts of Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. The threat of major inland flooding from these storms appears to be increasing.
Hurricane Matthew hit Lumberton, North Carolina, in 2016. No one in the town, 80 miles inland, saw 20 inches of rain. The Lumber River rose 11 feet above flood stage and inundated the town.
Fire Chief Jimmy Hunt, a 6-foot-3 man, remembers being in water up to his chest. Back in 2016He rescued about 50 people, mostly elderly, from flood waters.
“What we saw there was pretty horrific,” he told CBS News at the time. “Within 10 to 15 minutes of the water coming in, their homes were flooded. … At that point, it was just a matter of survival.”
Two years later, Hurricane Florence struck. It made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane and brought more than 35 inches of rain to parts of North and South Carolina in two days.
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“It’s really mind-boggling that this same thing could happen again,” said Brianna Goodwin, a community organizer in Lumberton with the Robeson County Church and Community Center.
“I almost felt like I was in shock,” she said, recalling the two feet of rain that flooded the area. “I see the flood. I see the water. But is it real?”
Hurricane flooding destroyed Sheila Moore’s Lumberton home twice. “We literally lost everything,” she said.
She had remodeled the house after it was destroyed by Hurricane Matthew, but Florence destroyed it again in 2018.
“It was devastating,” Moore said.
Lumberton has learned the hard way twice that today’s hurricanes can target communities far from the coast.
Warming oceans fuel storms, and the warmer atmosphere holds more moisture. That increased moisture leads to more precipitation. Recent modeling by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts that precipitation will increase by an average of 10 to 15 percent within about 60 miles of most storms as the Earth approaches 4 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) of warming.
“Not only are storms getting more intense, slower and more water-laden, but populations are changing,” said Gavin Smith, a professor at North Carolina State University who studies the impact of climate change on natural disasters. “And people moving into these areas may not be fully aware of that impact.”
In 2016, more than 800 Lumberton residents fled to flood shelters. There could be many more in the future. In about 30 years, storms could cause flood damage to more than 19 million properties, both coastal and inland, according to an analysis by CBS News and First Street. But only about 25% of them have flood insurance.
Years after Matthew and Florence, Lumberton has only partially recovered, physically and psychologically.
“There’s something that can destroy your home, and that’s just not a very easy feeling to have,” Goodwin said.
Marc Strassmann
