Debby brings heavy flooding to Northeast before blowing into Canada

The remnants of Hurricane Debby brought heavy flooding to parts of the Northeast before the storm left the United States and crossed into Canada late Friday night.

The storm spent the better part of a week unleashing tornadoes and flooding, damaging homes and taking lives as it moved up the East Coast after first arriving in Florida as a hurricane. The storm is expected to continue moving northeast. 

At least seven people have died related to Debby — four in Florida, including two children, one in Georgia and two in North Carolina. Rockingham's sheriff confirmed to CBS News that a woman was killed when a tree fell on a mobile home in Brown Summit, North Carolina.

Some of the worst flash flooding in New York on Friday happened in villages and hamlets in a largely rural area south of the Finger Lakes. First responders launched high-water and helicopter rescues of people trapped in cars and homes in rural New York and Pennsylvania as heavy rain caused intense floods.

More than 167,000 customers were without power across New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont on Friday night, according to utility tracker PowerOutage.us.  

In Steuben County, which borders Pennsylvania, officials ordered the evacuation of the towns of Jasper, Woodhull and part of Addison, and said people were trapped as floodwaters made multiple roads impassable. By mid-evening, some of those orders were being lifted as threat of severe flooding passed.

In the hamlet of Woodhull, a rain-swollen creek ran so ferociously that the water overtopped a bridge. Area resident Stephanie Waters said parts of sheds, branches and uprooted trees were among the debris that slammed into the span.

"Hearing the trees hit the bridge was scary," she said.

Fire Chief Timothy Martin said everybody was safe in the town, but "every business in Woodhull is damaged."

John Anderson said he watched the floodwaters come up quickly, overwhelming some vehicles in Canisteo, in Steuben County, and nearby in Andover, in Allegany County. "It's not a slow rise. It's been very fierce," said Anderson, who was providing dispatches to The Wellsville Sun. He said he watched people's belongings get carried away by the raging water.

In Canisteo, farm owners Cliff and Deb Moss suffered heavy damage to their dairy farm, which has been there for more than five decades. A neighbor's double-wide trailer floated down a field to a river during the flooding, said their daughter, Stacey Urban.

Urban said the catastrophic damage to the community was still coming into focus and was hard to fathom.

"They have lost a lot. Beyond heartbreaking," Urban said.

Ann Farkas, who also lives in Canisteo, said it was the first time her home, one of the oldest in the county, has flooded since she moved there in 1976. She now has to shovel out layers of thick and heavy silt that were left behind.

"The water's going down, and so what's left is this really thick — it's like wet concrete — mud," Farkas said. Her plans are to clean out a garage so furniture can be moved there before the baseboards, floorboards and possibly the subflooring on the first floor can be ripped up.

"Like a lot of people, I don't have flood insurance, so I doubt my homeowner's is going to cover any of this," she said.

Steuben County manager Jack Wheeler said the storm was hitting some of the same areas as Tropical Storm Fred three years earlier and that a half-dozen swift water rescue teams were retrieving people trapped in vehicles and homes.

About 20 evacuees arrived at a shelter set up at a high school, Red Cross spokesperson Michael Tedesco said. A second shelter was also being set up at another high school in Steuben County.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro declared states of emergency.

Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency Director Randy Padfield said a National Guard helicopter with aquatic rescue capability was sent to Tioga County because flooding conditions had become severe in the region, which runs along the New York state line.

Padfield said Tioga officials have asked for help with eight to 10 rescue locations, and multiple boat-based rescues were also being conducted.

In Potter County, also on the border with New York, the storm took out bridges and did severe damage to Route 49, Commissioner Bob Rossman said.

"My understanding is the roadway is pretty much well gone," Rossman said. "That'll be a very costly replacement. And one of the main thoroughfares in the county."

He said one firefighter suffered water-related injuries, but Rossman did not know the extent.

Debby became a tropical depression by late Thursday afternoon, the National Hurricane Center said. It made landfall early Monday on the Gulf Coast of Florida as a Category 1 hurricane. Then, Debby made a second landfall early Thursday in South Carolina as a tropical storm.

In Vermont, where thousands were without power, Gov. Phil Scott warned that Debby's remnants could cause serious damage, including in already drenched places that were hit by flash flooding twice last month. Flooding that slammed the northeastern part of the state on July 30 knocked out bridges, destroyed and damaged homes, and washed away roads in the rural town of Lyndon. It came three weeks after deadly flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Beryl. President Joe Biden approved Vermont's emergency declaration.  

Stormwater swamped parts of downtown Annapolis, Maryland, including at the U.S. Naval Academy on Friday. And flash flooding hit the South Carolina town of Moncks Corner, where one of Debby's early bands unleashed a tornado on Tuesday. Across the surrounding Berkeley County, emergency crews made 33 high-water rescues.

Air travel was also impacted by the storm at a Charlotte Douglas International Airport, where a plane carrying members of the Carolina Panthers veered off the taxiway and into thick mud. No one was hurt.

As of Friday evening, more than 960 flights within, into or out of the U.S. had been canceled, according to flight tracking website FlightAware. 

There were eight dam breaches in Georgia, half of them in rural Bulloch County northwest of Savannah, Gov. Brian Kemp said. At one point, 140 people were in shelters, he said. Some poultry facilities flooded, and some cattle were lost in flooded pastures, officials said.

On Thursday, tornadoes spawned by Debby leveled homes, damaged a school and killed one person as the tropical system dropped heavy rain and flooded communities across the Carolinas.  

Early Friday morning, one resident of Bonneau, South Carolina, just north of Moncks Corner, said Debby was far from done with his farm:

It only took 15 seconds for a tornado to devastate Genesis Cooper's home in Lucama, North Carolina, a small town about 40 miles east of Raleigh. He almost slept through it but was awakened by an alert on his wife's phone.

He, his wife and their 20-year-old son huddled in a bathroom with blankets. They felt vibrations and heard glass shattering before hearing a sudden boom.

"I can't even describe it. It's like, suction, that's what it felt like," Cooper said. "Like something is squeezing, like your ears are popping."

The tornado was one of at least three reported in North Carolina, and perhaps the most devastating. One person was found dead in a home damaged by the Lucama tornado, Wilson County spokesperson Stephen Mann said.

The superintendent of Wilson County Schools confirmed damage at Springfield Middle School, where sections of the walls and roof were gone or compromised.

Drone footage showed portions of the school's roof ripped off, exposing rafters and duct work. A section of wall had crumbled onto the soggy green lawn, which was strewn with twisted pieces of metal roof and shredded insulation.

"It literally brought tears to all of our eyes for our community to be hit like this. It affects us all," Jamie Driver told CBS News' Patrick Torphy.

Her son goes to the school and her husband, Robbie Driver, responded there as a firefighter with the Crossroads Volunteer Fire Department. 

Meanwhile, a dam north of Fayetteville, North Carolina, broke Thursday morning as Debby drenched the area. Between 12 and 15 homes were evacuated, but no one was injured and no structures were damaged, Harnett County spokesperson Desiree Patrick said.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said at a briefing Thursday that the state had activated more National Guard troops and added additional vehicles that can rescue people in floods.

About 100 miles south of Lucama, deputies in Bladenboro posted photos of a patrol car damaged by a fallen tree, as well as roads that had been washed out.