Debby weakens to tropical depression after South Carolina landfall, heads up East Coast as heavy rainmaker
Debby made a second landfall Thursday as a tropical storm in South Carolina before weakening to a tropical depression. The storm was on its way up the East Coast, where residents as far north as Vermont are forecast to get several inches of rain this weekend.
The National Hurricane Center said Debby came ashore near Bulls Bay, South Carolina. The storm is expected to keep moving inland, spreading heavy rain and possible flooding all the way up through the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast by the weekend.
The storm first made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane early Monday on the Gulf Coast of Florida. As of 5 p.m. EDT Thursday, it had maximum sustained winds of 35 mph, the Miami-based hurricane center said. Debby's center was about 45 miles east of Charlotte, North Carolina, and some 95 miles southwest of Raleigh, North Carolina. It was moving north-northwest at 10 mph.
Debby was expected to drop an additional 3 to 6 inches of rain — with locally higher amounts — across parts of southeastern North Carolina, bringing storm total amounts to as high as 15 inches, the hurricane center said.
Additional rainfall of 1 to 3 inches over parts eastern South Carolina could bring total rainfall amounts to as high as 25 inches. "Considerable flooding" is expected across parts of eastern South Carolina and southeast North Carolina through Friday, forecasters said.
From North Carolina to Virginia, 3 to 7 inches or more are expected through Friday, likely leading to flash, river and urban flooding. Maryland through Upstate New York and Vermont could see 2 to 4 inches or more through Friday night, also leading to flooding.
Rain from Debby is being blamed for the deaths of at least six people — four in Florida, including two children, and the others in Georgia and North Carolina.
The state in Debby's path with the most power outages Thursday evening — more than 71,000 — was North Carolina, according to PowerOutage.us.
Debby spawned several suspected tornados early Thursday, including one that Wilson County Emergency Management Director Gordon Deno said damaged the Springfield Middle School in Lucama, North Carolina. He said several homes and a church were also damaged but no injuries have been reported.
"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.
The National Weather Service's office in Charleston also said survey teams confirmed four-Debby related tornadoes.
In Huger, about 15 miles northeast of Charleston, Gene Taylor was waiting in the afternoon for a few inches of water to drain from his house along French Quarter Creek as high tide passed.
Taylor saw the potential for flooding last week and started moving belongings out or up higher in his home. It's a lesson learned the hard way: Taylor estimated that this was the fourth time he's had floodwater in his home in the past nine years.
"To save everything, we've learned from the past it's better be prepared for the worst. And unfortunately, I think we got it," Taylor said.
A few doors down, Charles Grainger was cleaning up after about 8 inches of water got into his home.
"Eight inches disrupts your whole life," Grainger said. "You don't get used to it. You just grin and bear it. It's part of living on the creek."
In Georgia, at least four dams were breached northwest of Savannah in Bulloch County, but no deaths had been reported, authorities said at a briefing.
More than 75 people were rescued from floodwaters in the county, said Corey Kemp, director of emergency management, and about 100 roads were closed.
"We've been faced with a lot of things we've never been faced with before," Bulloch County Commission Chairman Roy Thompson said. "I'm 78-plus years old and have never seen anything like this before in Bulloch County. It's amazing what has happened, and amazing what is going to continue to happen until all these waters get out of here."
For residents on Tappan Zee Drive in suburban Pooler, west of Savannah, the drenching that Debby delivered came with a painful dose of déjà vu. In October 2016, Hurricane Matthew overflowed a nearby canal and flooded several of the same homes.
Located roughly 30 miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean, with no creeks or rivers nearby, the neighborhood doesn't seem like a high-risk location for tropical flooding. But residents say drainage problems have plagued their street for well over a decade, despite local government efforts to fix them.
Debby also dumped rain on communities all the way up to the Great Lakes and New York and New Jersey. Moisture from the tropical storm strengthened another system Tuesday evening, which caused strong thunderstorms, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Scott Kleebauer.
"We had a multi-round period of showers and thunderstorms that kind of scooted from Michigan eastward," Kleebauer said.
As much as 6 inches of rain fell in parts of New Jersey in less than four hours.
Emergency officials in New York City warned of potential flash flooding, flying drones with loudspeakers in some neighborhoods to tell people in basement apartments to be ready to flee at a moment's notice. Multiple water rescues were reported in and near the city.
Some 260,000 customers remained without power in Ohio midday Thursday, PowerOutage.us said, following severe storms including two confirmed tornadoes. Utility officials with FirstEnergy's Illuminating Company said via social media that power restoration would take days due to the damage.
In South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster said his state was just entering Act 2 of a three-act play, after more than 60 homes were damaged but roads and water systems were without significant problems.
The final act may come next week if enough rain falls upstream in North Carolina to cause major flooding along rivers as they flow to the Atlantic Ocean.
A state of emergency was in effect for both North Carolina and Virginia. Maryland issued a state of preparedness declaration that coordinates preparations without declaring an emergency.
