Tropical Storm Debby has moved menacingly toward some of the most historic cities in the southern United States and is expected to bring prolonged rain and flooding throughout the day Tuesday after crashing into Florida and enabled the rescue of hundreds of people from flooded homes.
Record rains from the storm killed at least five people Monday, four in Florida – including two children – and one in Georgia.
As of 5 a.m. ET Tuesday, the center of Debby was about 50 miles southwest of Savannah, Georgia, and 130 miles southwest of Charleston, South Carolina, and moving northeast at 7 mph, with maximum sustained winds of 45 mph, the National Hurricane Center said.
“Debby is expected to produce potentially historic rainfall amounts of 10 to 20 inches, with peak amounts of 25 inches, causing catastrophic flooding in parts of southeastern Georgia, the eastern half of South Carolina and southeastern North Carolina through Friday,” the Miami-based center said. “From northern North Carolina to parts of the mid-Atlantic states, rainfall amounts of 4 to 8 inches, with local amounts up to 12 inches, are expected through Sunday morning. This rainfall will likely result in areas of significant flash and urban flooding, with river flooding possible.”
“On the planned trajectory“, forecasters continued, “the center of Debby is expected to move off the Georgia coast later today, drift offshore through early Thursday, then move inland over South Carolina on Thursday.”
Tropical storm-force winds extended up to 205 miles east of the center, the center added.
Debby landed along Florida’s Gulf Coast early Monday as Category 1 HurricaneIt weakened to a tropical storm and moved slowly, bringing torrential rains and severe flooding to many areas.
NOAA / National Hurricane Center
The race to cope
Flash flood warnings have been issued in Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina, among other coastal areas in Georgia and South Carolina. Savannah and Charleston both announced curfews from Monday night through Tuesday.
In South Carolina, Charleston County Interim Emergency Manager Ben Webster called Debby a “historic and potentially unprecedented event” three times during a 90-second briefing Monday.
According to PowerOutage.us, about 154,000 customers were without power Tuesday morning in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.
More than 1,600 flights were also canceled nationwide on Monday, many to and from Florida airports, according to FlightAware.com.
In addition to the curfew, the city of Charleston’s emergency plan includes sandbagging residents, opening parking lots so residents can park their cars above floodwaters and an online mapping system that shows which roads are closed due to flooding.
Debby, a threat
In Edisto Beach, South Carolina, a tornado struck Monday night, damaging trees and homes and downing power lines, the Colleton County Sheriff’s Office said on social media. No injuries were immediately reported, authorities said.
Nearly 500 people were rescued Monday from flooded homes in Sarasota, Florida, a popular beach town, the Sarasota Police Department said in a social media post. Just north of Sarasota, Manatee County officials said in a news release that 186 people had been rescued from floodwaters.
“We basically had twice as much rain as expected,” Sarasota County Fire Chief David Rathbun said on social media.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has warned that the state could continue to face threats as waterways north of the border fill up and flow south.
“This is a very wet, very saturating storm,” he said. “When the waves peak and the water comes down from Georgia, we’re going to be on alert, not just today, but all next week.”
Debby is already mortal
Five people died Monday night from the storm, including a truck driver on Interstate 75 in the Tampa area after he lost control of his tractor-trailer, which flipped over a concrete wall and hung over the edge before the cab fell into the water below. Sheriff’s Department divers located the driver, a 64-year-old Mississippi man, in the cab 40 feet below the surface, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
A 13-year-old boy died Monday morning after a tree fell on a mobile home southwest of Gainesville, Florida, according to the Levy County Sheriff’s Office. In Dixie County, just east of where the storm made landfall, a 38-year-old woman and a 12-year-old boy died in a car crash on wet roads Sunday night.
In southern Georgia, a 19-year-old man died Monday afternoon when a large tree fell on the porch of a home in Moultrie.
Disasters declared
President Biden approved a request from the governor of South Carolina to declare a state of emergency, after approving a similar request from Florida. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said he asked Biden to declare a federal state of emergency preemptively to speed up the flow of federal aid to his state.
Vice President Kamala Harris has postponed a campaign stop scheduled for Thursday in Savannah.
North Carolina has also been in a state of emergency since Gov. Roy Cooper declared it in an executive order he signed Monday. Several areas along the state’s coastline are prone to flooding, including Wilmington and the Outer Banks, according to the North Carolina Floodplain Mapping Program.
North Carolina and South Carolina have faced three catastrophic floods caused by tropical systems in the past nine years, each causing more than $1 billion in damage.
In 2015, moisture-fueled rainfall from Hurricane Joaquin’s passage off the coast caused massive flooding. In 2016, flooding from Hurricane Matthew caused 24 deaths in both states and rivers reached record levels. Those records were broken in 2018 by Hurricane Florence, which set rainfall records in both Carolinas, flooded many areas, and caused 42 deaths in North Carolina and nine in South Carolina.
