As Tropical Storm Debby strengthened along the Atlantic coast Wednesday, millions in the Carolinas braced for the system to make a second landfall, further inundating rain-soaked communities and extending widespread flooding through the Mid-Atlantic region.
Debby has drenched parts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina in over a foot of rain and could drop up to 50 trillion gallons of rainwater along its path, according to one estimate. The flash floods Debby caused forced evacuations, overwhelmed drainage systems and breached multiple dams in Georgia.
At least six deaths have been tied to the storm. The sixth one was confirmed Tuesday after police in Gulfport, Florida, found the body of a boater who had been missing, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
After pushing off the coast of Georgia on Tuesday, Debby is projected to pick up wind speed before moving ashore along the central coast of South Carolina on Wednesday night or early Thursday morning, according to the National Weather Service. Debby could dump an additional 3 to 9 inches of rainfall − and local amounts could range as high as 25 inches in South Carolina and 15 inches in southeast North Carolina through Friday.
“People should be prepared to seek higher ground and to know of an evacuation route and have a plan in place,” AccuWeather meteorologist Brandon Buckingham said.
Some Mid-Atlantic cities began to feel Debby’s effects Tuesday as the system’s tropical moisture interacted with a cold front, spawning early storms. New York City, Philadelphia and Newark, New Jersey, were soaked in several inches of rain, and there were reports of flooding in low-lying areas.
Late Wednesday, swaths of eastern North Carolina were under flash flood warnings after receiving 4 to 6 inches of rain with more on the way. Brunswick County Schools, which serves about 13,000 students in the southernmost part of North Carolina, announced it would be closed on Thursday due to flooded roads and anticipated heavy rain overnight, though one high school would operate remotely.
Residents in northeastern South Carolina were also under flash flood warnings late Wednesday as the National Weather Service warned up to six more inches of rain could damage roadways after some areas had already seen 2 to 4 inches.
Debby is predicted to combine with a frontal boundary over the Mid-Atlantic on Friday and then gain speed and push through the Northeast, dumping more rain across the region and causing “considerable flash and urban flooding as well as river flooding,” according to the weather service.
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Developments:
∎New York City sent out drones to alert residents of low-lying areas about the possibility of flooding Tuesday, but the announcements made in Spanish − spoken at home by about one-quarter of New Yorkers − were barely understandable, The Associated Press reported. City officials apologized.
∎The National Weather Service office in Charleston, South Carolina, has confirmed four tornado touchdowns: In Moncks Corner, Edisto Beach, Kiawah Island and Lady’s Island.
∎Flash and river flooding is expected through Aug. 15 from South Carolina up to south-central Virginia, according to the National Water Center, which said flooding is also forecast or already happening in the Suwannee and Tampa River basins in Florida up through the Georgia coastal plain.
∎ The federal Department of Health and Human Services declared a public health emergency in Georgia and South Carolina on Wednesday, a day after issuing a similar declaration in Florida.
∎ The Canoochee River, about 50 miles west of Savannah, Georgia, broke a 99-year-old record Wednesday when it reached 18 feet, slightly above the previous mark of 17.8 set in 1925, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
‘Cats swimming through’ flooded Charleston street
Barbara Zeller, 54, is lucky to be an Olympics enthusiast. The flooding triggered by Debby trapped her in her Charleston home for days, so she spent large parts of them watching the Paris Games.
“You’re basically in prison,” said Zeller, who moved to the area about five years ago after living in New York City for two decades.
By Wednesday, the rain was still coming down in Zeller’s neighborhood near the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge, which connects Charleston and the town of Mount Pleasant. Still, it was far less than the consistent downpour from Monday and Tuesday, she said.
On her flooded street, “the water is thigh-high, almost to my waist,” Zeller said. “I’ve seen cats swimming through, because there’s no other way around it.”
Zeller moved her vehicle to a parking garage at higher elevation that the city opened ahead of the storm. “Everywhere below me, including my own parking garage, floods very, very badly,” she said.
Tropical wave unlikely to develop
Another tropical system that had concerned forecasters earlier in the week appears to be less of a threat to develop into a named storm, the National Hurricane Center said Wednesday. The center is now giving the system only a 10% chance of development within the next seven days.
“Disorganized showers and thunderstorms located over the southwestern Caribbean Sea are associated with a tropical wave,” the center said. Although a portion of the wave could reach the southwestern Gulf of Mexico over the weekend, “any development of this system should be slow to occur,” the center said.
Even if it doesn’t develop, the system will still dump heavy rain across portions of Central America and Mexico over the next few days, Weather.com reported. If its sustained winds reach 39 mph, which is not expected, the wave would become a named tropical storm. The next name on the storm list is Ernesto.
Northeast storms related to Tropical Storm Debby
The heavy rain and severe thunderstorms that walloped the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic on Tuesday were indirectly related to Tropical Storm Debby, meteorologist Rick Otto of the Weather Prediction Center told USA TODAY. And more is on the way, even before Debby moves in later in the week.
Otto said that while the main impacts from Debby have been in the Southeast, a plume of moisture from the tropical storm interacted with other weather systems such as a cold front to produce torrential rain and flooding in cities Tuesday such as New York, Philadelphia and Newark, wreaking travel havoc.
The Storm Prediction Center said there were dozens of reports of severe weather, mainly from strong wind gusts, from Ohio through Pennsylvania and New Jersey on Tuesday. More than 330,000 homes and businesses in northeast Ohio were out of power early Wednesday afternoon, the majority in Cuyahoga County, home to Cleveland.
According to AccuWeather, there will be additional episodes of flooding downpours and severe thunderstorms with strong wind gusts into Wednesday night from portions of the central Appalachians and Mid-Atlantic to New England.
North Carolina counties, towns issue voluntary evacuations
Local officials in North Carolina have issued voluntary evacuation orders for low-lying and coastal areas as the effects of Tropical Storm Debby began to intensify.
Multiple counties and beach communities, including North Carolina’s Brunswick County and Ocean Isle Beach, near the South Carolina border, have urged residents to evacuate, citing heavy rains and dangerous storm surge.
“Don’t take this storm for granted simply because it is labeled a tropical storm − there will be severe weather impacts throughout the week,” Randy Thompson, chairman of the Brunswick County Board of Commissioners, said in a news release.
“Due to the high probability of life-threatening flood waters on the coast and inland over the next few days, visitors should carefully consider evacuating,” said a statement posted Wednesday by officials in Ocean Isle Beach.
From Folly Beach, South Carolina, to the coasts of North Carolina’s Ocracoke Inlet, storm surge from Debby could reach 1-3 feet if it coincides with peak high tide, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Debby’s latest rainfall totals
Since Monday, Debby has inundated the Southeast with torrential rain, causing widespread flooding from Florida to North Carolina. Below are some of the highest rainfall totals recorded so far, according to the National Weather Service.
Florida:
- Ruskin: 21.7 inches
- Palm Harbor: 20.34 inches
- Parrish: 18.86 inches
- Sarasota: 17.78 inches
- Pinellas Park: 14.04 inches
South Carolina:
- Green Pond: 16.55 inches
- Edisto Beach: 13.90 inches
- Beaufort: 12.74 inches
- Bennetts Point: 12.50 inches
- Hardeeville: 12.15 inches
Georgia:
- Rincon: 13.29 inches
- Rocky Ford: 12.89 inches
- Belville: 12.00 inches
- Springfield: 11.43 inches
- Savannah: 10.40 inches
North Carolina:
- Calabash: 5.17 inches
- Sunset Harbor: 5.09 inches
- Shallotte: 4.87 inches
- Holden Beach: 4.32 inches
- Bolivia: 4.06 inches
Tropical Storm Debby strengthens offshore
Debby strengthened Wednesday as it churned northward along the Atlantic coast ahead of an expected landfall in South Carolina.
According to an 8 p.m. ET update from the National Hurricane Center, Debby’s maximum sustained winds reached 60 mph, up from 45 mph at 8 a.m. The storm, located 40 miles southeast of Charleston and 75 miles south of Myrtle Beach, was moving at 3 mph.
The hurricane center, citing Debby’s lack of a well-defined core, said the storm’s strengthening will be “limited.” But Debby still poses a major threat to coastal and inland areas across the eastern U.S. where extensive flooding is ongoing.
Debby is worst storm in Georgia resident’s recent memory
When Glenn De Vecchis tried to leave his house in east-central Georgia on Wednesday morning after Tropical Storm Debby left the area, the state of the roads left him “really scared.” The storm scattered some branches across the roads, and deep puddles in several places blocked his vision.
“When I hit those big, giant puddles, I couldn’t see anything,” Vecchis, 69, told USA TODAY. “I was lucky I stayed on the road because I was wobbling all over the place.”
The storm lashed De Vecchis’ home in Metter, about 65 miles west of Savannah, with rain for three days – “morning, noon and night, without stopping,” he said. The retired business owner said his house was set up high enough to avoid the floodwaters and sturdy enough to withstand the winds.
The last serious storm to pass through was 15 years ago, he said, but “this is the worst I have seen.”
Streets flood, dams breached in Georgia
The record-breaking rainfall from Debby caused the breach of several dams in northern Georgia and led to evacuations downstream from a vulnerable dam in South Carolina.
The National Weather Service reported Thursday afternoon that officials in Bulloch County, Georgia, are warning about the imminent failure of the Cypress Lake Dam, about 50 miles northwest of Savannah. If the dam breaks, the weather service said flooding will occur in portions of neighborhoods immediately downstream and then flow onto U.S. Highway 301. Residents in low-lying areas below the dam were advised to move to higher ground immediately.
Hours after dams at Simmons Pond burst, the dam at Oglesby Pond was breached, according to Bulloch County Public Safety, which warned that rushing water would cross a nearby highway and wash into neighboring ponds and lakes.
Meanwhile, in Colleton County, South Carolina, local officials warned Tuesday afternoon that the McGrady Dam had “the potential to fail” and issued evacuation notices to residents downstream. Hours later, the county’s fire rescue department said there was “substantial flooding in the area of the dam and creek,” but that the structure was holding.
Debby pulls down power lines, scatters debris in Savannah
As Debby moved over Savannah, Georgia, Michael Kavanaugh watched rain pour down for more than 48 hours, flooding the streets of his home community of Wilmington Island, around 10 miles east of the city’s downtown. Although he didn’t see widespread destruction and only a few nearby trees were downed, the storm still left a mark, said Kavanaugh, 67.
“There’s a lot of debris all over,” he said. “A couple of power lines were drooping on the ground.”
The storm prompted Kavanaugh, the pastor of Saint Peter the Apostle Catholic Parish, to close down the church’s school Monday and Tuesday. Other areas of Savannah, like the historic downtown neighborhood of Ardsley Park where Kavanaugh grew up, would likely experience longer inconveniences from the flooding, he said.
By Wednesday morning, Kavanaugh walked out of his office and noticed the storm clouds had broken. “I saw blue skies for the first time since I don’t know when,” he said.
Charleston lifts citywide curfew as Debby churns offshore
The city of Charleston on Wednesday lifted a curfew that had been in place since Monday night when Debby first began inundating South Carolina with torrential rain.
“After assessing overnight conditions, officials have determined that it is safe to return to normal activities,” the statement said, adding that main thoroughfares in and out of the city have been reopened. “Thanks to the curfew, Charleston Police and Fire Departments did not need to perform any rescues during the (storm).”
Downtown Charleston received 3.56 inches of rain Tuesday, breaking the previous record of 3.46 that was set in 1992, according to the National Weather Service. Surrounding areas in Charleston County were drenched in up to 10.5 inches of rain since Monday.
“Expect long term river flooding to inhibit recovery efforts at least into next week, possibly beyond,” the weather service office in Charleston said on X.
Charleston Mayor William Cogswell said in a statement that the city “will remain vigilant as Debby lingers nearby, but for now we are just grateful for everyone doing their part.”
Nearly 21,000 without power in Florida amid heat advisories
Two days after Debby made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane, swaths of northern Florida were still without power Wednesday afternoon as intense heat baked parts of the southern U.S.
Across the Big Bend region, almost 21,000 homes and businesses were in the dark, according to Poweroutage.us. At its peak, more than 250,000 utility customers had no power as the storm’s winds knocked down utility poles and uprooted trees.
Heat advisories were active across the Big Bend as well as South Florida, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. In northern Florida, heat index temperatures were expected to reach 109 degrees, according to the National Weather Service, which urged people to stay out of the sun and seek air conditioning.
Contributing: Dinah Voyles Pulver, USA TODAY; Sherry Jones, Renee Spencer, Gareth McGrath, Owen Hassell, Wilmington Star-News
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