Though no longer a tropical storm, now-Tropical Depression Debby was still dropping copious amounts of rain on eastern states Thursday evening as the Northeast braces for the system’s arrival.
Debby, still a tropical storm at the time, made its second U.S. landfall around 2 a.m. near Bulls Bay, South Carolina, just northeast of Charleston, according to the National Hurricane Center. In a matter of hours, over half a foot of rain had fallen in parts of central North Carolina, causing “life threatening flash flooding” as waterways crested, turning roads into rivers.
Debby is expected to dump 4 to 8 inches of rain − some areas could get up to 15 inches − across parts of the Carolinas and Virginia on Thursday and Friday, bringing “considerable to locally catastrophic flash flooding impacts,” the weather service’s Storm Prediction Center said. All told, rain totals in some parts of South Carolina could exceed 2 feet.
Debby’s sustained winds were down to 35 mph by 5 p.m. ET, downgrading it to a tropical depression. In the days ahead, the storm is forecast to weaken as it picks up speed and moves north, bringing up to 6 inches of rain from Maryland to Vermont. Flood watches throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions were set to activate Thursday evening and last through Friday night.
Across Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, Debby drenched communities in over a foot of rain, breaking several decades-old records. Flash flooding triggered water rescues, overtook roads and breached several dams as winds knocked over trees and tangled power lines. Officials have said at least seven people have died as a result of the storm.
Debby tracker map:See tropical storm’s path and rainfall, flooding foreacts as it’s projected to push northeast
Developments:
∎ Millions of people from southeast Georgia up through the Carolinas and western New York were under flood advisories, according to the National Weather Service. Parts of North Carolina and Virginia were under tornado watches.
∎ Virginia’s Department of Emergency Management warned residents to stay aware of possible tornadoes Thursday and Friday. “Tropical Storm Debby has the potential to create tornadoes, with the threat potentially lasting through the overnight hours,” the post said.
∎ Cleanup crews have cleared over 245 miles of road and eight acres of debris across Florida, according to the state’s Division of Emergency Management. Emergency responders in high-water vehicles and on foot rescued at least 120 people trapped by floodwaters.
A man in Wilson County, North Carolina, was found dead in his home after a tornado touched down in the area, bringing Debby’s death toll to at least seven.
Stephen Mann, director of communication for Wilson County, told USA TODAY on Thursday that a twister tore through the outskirts of Lucama, a town 35 miles southeast of Raleigh, sometime before 3 a.m. A middle school, a church and four homes sustained structural damage. Inside one of the homes, a search and rescue team discovered the body of an adult male, Mann said.
Officials have tied Debby to at least six other deaths, five in Florida and one in Georgia. In the southern Georgia city of Moultrie, a tree fell onto a home, killing a 19-year-old, Gov. Brian Kemp said Tuesday. In Florida, two adults and one teenager were killed in fatal vehicle accidents; also, a 13-year-old boy died after a fallen tree landed on a mobile home; and officials on Tuesday found the body of a boater who had been missing near the city of Gulfport.
Early Thursday morning, officials confirmed a tornado touched down in North Carolina’s Sampson County, damaging two homes, according to weather service reports. A suspected tornado was also reported in Pender County. Across South Carolina and Florida, Debby spawned eight tornadoes earlier this week.
Thursday quickly became a tough day at work for hotel manager Elise Tyler, when the ceiling of the Colonial Inn in Hillsborough, North Carolina, began to leak rainwater and drain systems couldn’t keep up with the heavy downpour.
“We are on the verge of flooded,” said Tyler, 37. “Several areas of the inn are dripping and it’s literally raining inside.”
The 200-year-old building had not lost power, but the lights were flickering, Tyler said. Nearby roads were closed because of flooding and some staff who lost power at their homes took advantage of empty hotel rooms to shower and charge their phones, she said.
The Colonial is located in a historic block of Hillsborough, close to the site of a Revolutionary War battle, and the building was pillaged by Union troops, according to the hotel’s website.
Known for its restaurant’s weekend brunch, the inn got a lot of customers Wednesday, Tyler said, likely because people were anticipating hunkering down Thursday – when only “one brave soul” came in for lunch.
Just as Debby continues to pound the East Coast, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center are also keeping an eye on a developing system near the Caribbean islands.
“An area of low pressure could form in the central or western tropical Atlantic Ocean early next week,” the center said in an online forecast released Thursday morning. “Some development of this system is possible while it approaches the Lesser Antilles during the early to middle part of next week and moves generally west-northwestward toward the Greater Antilles thereafter.”
The system has a 30% chance of becoming a tropical depression or named storm within the next week. The next name on the 2024 storm list is Ernesto. It’s far too soon to determine whether the system will impact any land areas, including the U.S.
– Doyle Rice, USA TODAY
Rainfall reports show more than a dozen locations in the Southeast where Debby has dropped at least a foot of rain since Saturday, causing widespread flooding from Florida to North Carolina. Below are some preliminary selected rain totals from the National Weather Service.
Florida:
South Carolina:
Georgia:
North Carolina:
Nearly 60,000 utility customers were out of power Thursday evening in North Carolina, half as many as earlier in the day as crews repaired some of the damage caused by Debby. Duke Energy, the state’s largest power provider, said Wednesday it had 7,500 linemen and other employees staged across the Carolinas to respond to outages.
Blackouts also diminished in Florida and South Carolina, which were down to around 4,000 each by 7 p.m. ET, as well as Georgia at around 1,300.
But as the storm headed north, other states like Virginia − with 16,000 outages − were feeling its effects. In addition, more than 245,000 homes and businesses were out of power in Ohio, the result of Tuesday storms impacted by Debby.
Tropical Storm Debby gained speed but lost intensity as it moved farther inland Thursday, hours after making its second U.S. landfall, the National Hurricane Center said.
According to a 5 p.m. update, the storm was moving north-northwest at 10 mph, twice as fast as when it was recorded several hours earlier. Debby was located 45 miles east of Charlotte, North Carolina, and 95 miles southwest of Raleigh, with sustained winds of 35 mph, down from 50 mph at 8 a.m., according to the center.
Debby is forecast to continue weakening over the next day, merging with a front Friday and being downgraded to an extratropical cyclone. On Friday, Debby is expected to move across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions before emerging over Canada on Saturday, according to the hurricane center.
In Raeford, North Carolina, Michelle Morville said her property got a few inches of rain overnight but hasn’t flooded or lost power. “It poured and is still raining here with more to come,” Morville said Thursday morning.
Her campground, Idlewild Farm Stays, is terraced to allow for erosion control so there’s no standing water, Morville said. Rain flows properly down a main driveway during storms, and after the current downpour passes, Morville said she will use a land plane on the road to clear any remaining moisture.
Many people who come to the farm are visiting family members serving in the military on nearby Fort Liberty, formerly Fort Bragg, Morville said. This week, she is offering discounted rates to anyone needing to move their camper or RV out of a flood zone.
“Most flooding issues I believe come from a lack of regard for Mother Nature and not planning accordingly to work with her,” Morville said.
Authorities in Bladenboro, North Carolina, began reopening several main roads after the town was completely cut off by floodwaters overnight.
“Water has receded in some areas. Crews will begin reopening up roads here shortly,” said a statement on the county’s Facebook page. Much of the downtown was still closed as standing water remained several inches deep in some areas.
Just before midnight, as Debby approached the South Carolina coast, a statement on Bladenboro’s Facebook page announced, “Downtown is underwater. We have several street closures out. Please stay off the roads!” Within an hour, the local fire department said, “Due to flooded roadways all roads into Bladenboro are closed.”
As the heavy rains and tornado threat shifted away from the area toward more northern parts of North Carolina and Virginia, the town has begun to assess the damage and reopen main roads. “Many secondary roads have not been checked, use caution,” the fire department warned early Thursday.