Pinned
Patricia Mazzei and Isabelle Taft
The storm will linger for days. Here’s what to know.
Tropical Storm Debby continued its slow march into Georgia on Monday night, with forecasters warning residents across the southeastern United States that the threat of major flooding from the storm could last for the next several days.
The storm has already dumped heavy rain across northern Florida, where it was blamed for four deaths, led to dangerous river flooding and triggered hundreds of water rescues. In southern Georgia, the storm was linked to the death of a 19-year-old man killed by a falling tree.
The system’s languid pace was of particular concern to forecasters and officials because of the amount of rain the former hurricane could drop as it trundles across the region — as much as 30 inches in parts of South Carolina.
“This is a lot of water coming our way,” said Mayor William Cogswell of Charleston, S.C., which was bracing for as much as a foot of rain overnight.
“We need to take it very, very seriously,” he added.
Debby came ashore as a Category 1 hurricane, with sustained winds of 80 m.p.h., at Steinhatchee, a village of about 500 people that sits on a sparsely populated stretch of the Florida coastline known was the Big Bend.
It is predicted to cross Georgia and South Carolina, before heading back out to sea, where it could absorb even more moisture before making a second landfall in North Carolina later this week.
Here are more details:
Inland flooding: Though storm surge was receding from coastal communities, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said that officials anticipated more flooding from rain and swelling rivers. About 500 residents of a Sarasota neighborhood were evacuated from their homes on Monday, some by rescue boats, as Phillippi Creek swelled with rain.
Back out to sea: The Hurricane Center predicts a storm surge of up to four feet on the Georgia and Carolina coasts by midweek after Debby moves offshore. The governors of those states declared emergencies, and officials in cities like Savannah, Ga., and Charleston, S.C., issued curfews to keep people off flooding streets overnight.
Busy season: Debby is the fourth named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. Seventeen to 25 named storms are expected before the season ends in late fall. In July, Hurricane Beryl became the earliest Category 5 hurricane ever recorded before it struck Texas at Category 1 strength, resulting in at least 23 deaths, according to officials, and leaving parts of the state without power for days.
Climate’s role: Hurricanes have become more destructive over time, in no small part because of the influences of a warming planet. Climate change is producing more powerful storms that generate heavier rainfall and flooding. But humans also make storm damage more extensive by continuing to build in vulnerable parts of the coast.
Sara Ruberg
Bryan Kersey, 31, is in Savannah, Ga., on business and is staying at a hotel on a street that is blocked off by police because of flooding. And the rain is still coming down.
When Mr. Kersey, who is about 5 feet 7 inches tall, went into the hotel parking lot earlier this evening to retrieve something from the trunk of his vehicle, the flooding was already nearly up to his thigh. “The weather is absolutely insane,” he said. While on the phone, the power in his hotel went off and came back on seconds later. The staff had posted warnings around the hotel that the power could go out.
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Sara Ruberg
Over 23,700 Georgians are without power as Debby crawls across the southeastern part of the state for the next several hours. In Florida, where Debby made landfall Monday morning, around 141,000 people are without power, according to poweroutage.us. In Jefferson County, Fla., east of the capital, Tallahassee, almost every resident is in the dark Monday night.
Precipitation intensity
Very light
Heavy
Extreme
Sources: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration via Iowa State University All times on the map are Eastern. By William B. Davis
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Sara Ruberg
A 19-year-old man was killed after a tree fell onto the side porch of a home in Moultrie, Ga., around 3:40 p.m., according to the Colquitt County Coroner’s Office. It was the first death linked to the storm in the county in the state's south.
Sara Ruberg
Adam Carey, 41, said the flooding from this storm was the worst he’s seen in the 10 years he’s lived in Lake City, Fla. Mr. Carey said his street and his yard had turned into a small creek. “It’s far from normal,” he said, noting that emergency vehicles continued to pass by his home nearly every hour.
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Sara Ruberg
Italian Pizzeria and Restaurant in Lake City, Fla., is busier than usual this evening, as one of the few open businesses with power. Starleigh McKinney, whose in-laws own the restaurant, said the family’s other restaurant in Live Oak was not as lucky, with nearly two feet of water having entered the building. “We hope to open tomorrow but we don’t know,” she said.
Eduardo Medina
Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina has declared a state of emergency, saying that Tropical Storm Debby “has the potential to bring intense rain and flooding” along the state’s coastline.
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Eduardo Medina
Mayor William Cogswell of Charleston, S.C., said at a news conference that he had issued a city-wide curfew from 11 p.m. tonight through 10 a.m. Tuesday. The city, which has long struggled with flooding, could get 10-12 inches of rainfall during that time, he said. “This is a lot of water coming our way,” Cogswell said. “And we need to take it very, very seriously.”
Valerie Crowder
Reporting from Steinhatchee, Fla.
A couple’s carport looked dry right after Debby. Then the Steinhatchee River rose.
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Cheri and Rusty Jakes were forced to wait for about a foot of storm surge to recede from their property on Monday before they could start cleaning the mess that Debby made.
The Jakeses live in Steinhatchee (pronounced steen-HATCH-ee), a tiny fishing town on Florida’s Big Bend, where Debby made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane early on Monday. Their property is right on the Steinhatchee River, which flowed into the couple’s carport, flooding it.
“We don’t have any monetary damages, just emotional damage,” said Ms. Jakes, 67, as she gestured toward several decades-old photo albums with wedding pictures and pictures of her family. “All of my children’s baby books got flooded,” she added, holding back tears. “That’s the most devastating thing. I don’t care about anything else right now.”
Mr. Jakes, 66, pulled a wooden filing cabinet with “important papers” out of a storage closet in the carport beneath their home. It was clearly water damaged.
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“These file cabinets I had on top of the cooler there,” said Mr. Jakes, who spent Sunday night stacking boxes into the storage unit, in an effort to protect them from flooding. “Evidently, it floated just enough for it to fall.”
Their home is elevated on stilts, protecting the interior living space from flooding. Early on Monday morning, they thought everything in their carport below was safe.
“This morning, it was totally dry,” Mr. Jakes said. Then the couple went down to the carport to make coffee on a grill at around 8 a.m. That’s when they saw the floodwaters from the river starting to rise. “It started coming up, coming up, coming up,” he said.
Steinhatchee was battered last year by Hurricane Idalia, a stronger Category 3 storm that covered the town in goopy, brown river mud. Hours after Debby came ashore on Monday, several gravel roads in town remained partially flooded. Docks were partially submerged along the river, though most homes, elevated on stilts, appeared dry.
Usually, the town would be bustling this time of year for scallop season. Saturday was a “madhouse,” said Skipper McCall, 69, a lifelong Steinhatchee resident who stayed home during the storm.
After surveying his home after the storm, Mr. McCall said that the only damage he found was a thin strip of siding that had been peeled back from the outer wall of his home. “They hollered wolf too early,” he said. “We get more wind out of a thundershower.”
The only store that looked open on Monday was an Ace Hardware, which had a steady stream of people buying mops, buckets, tarps and extension cords, Tyler Rayborn, the store’s assistant manager, said. The winds were strong when he opened the shop at 7:30 a.m., he said, though the rain did not pick up until later in the morning. Idalia had been much worse, he added.
For Debby, many residents had evacuated. The Jakeses thought they had been perhaps the only ones among their neighbors who had stayed for the storm.
“It could’ve been a lot worse,” Ms. Jakes said. “We could’ve lost a roof, or a tornado could’ve come through, but it didn’t. You’ve got to count your blessings.”
Sara Ruberg
Nearly every road is closed in the city of Live Oak, Fla., because of flooding, according to a Suwannee County emergency management official. Live Oak, about 60 miles inland from where Debby came ashore, is under a flash flood emergency from the National Weather Service, along with several nearby communities. Those emergencies are only issued in rare occasions when heavy rain causes a severe threat to human life.
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John Keefe
Weather Data Editor
Tropical Storm Debby’s slow march across Florida has contributed to the storm’s heavy rainfall amounts. Creeping north at 6 m.p.h., the system is moving a tad slower than an American alligator on land, according to University of Florida experts.
Isabelle Taft
Gov. Henry McMaster said many South Carolinians are familiar with flooding, but new residents migth not know what to expect. The state has added population in recent years, and in 2023 was the fastest-growing state in the country. “We ask the new people particularly to learn about what you’re supposed to do,” McMaster said.
Isabelle Taft
Parts of South Carolina could get up to 30 inches of rain this week, said John Quagliariello of the National Weather Service. He added that some places may set rainfall records. “It’s very likely that some areas that have never flooded in the past will be impacted this time,” he said.
Abigail Geiger
Reporting from Cedar Key, Fla.
Cedar Key, Fla., walloped by Idalia last year, faces another recovery after Debby.
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Nearly a year after Hurricane Idalia blew through Cedar Key, a chain of tiny islands three miles into the Gulf of Mexico, Hurricane Debby slammed the same part of Florida’s Big Bend coast on Monday. Howling wind and waves crashed high on the village’s fishing pier.
Until Idalia, a powerful Category 3 hurricane at landfall, Cedar Key had been spared a major storm since Hurricane Hermine hit in 2016. It was a Category 1, like Debby.
“Between Hermine and Idalia, that was seven years apart,” Patrick Bonish, 51, said. “Now, with Debby hitting, it makes things a little harder. It’s not fun when it’s back to back.”
Mr. Bonish and his wife, Cindy, were cleaning up debris around their business, Thirst Emporium/Bonish Studio. Walking to the front of his shop, Mr. Bonish pointed to the high water lines from all three hurricanes that he had drawn on the door frame.
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Idalia caused major damage on Cedar Key, forcing residents to board up their homes and businesses and, in many cases, to evacuate to avoid the brunt of the hurricane. On Monday, residents who stayed were able to go out quickly after Debby to assess the damage, a sign that the storm had caused significantly less damage.
Over the bridge in mainland Levy County on Monday, the roads were littered with debris from storm-struck trees, downed power lines and streetlights.
Christine Haines, 55, who owns Cedar Key Jewelers, said that the community would once again need to draw on its wells of resilience.
“We’ll stay as long as we can,” she said. “That’s what you have to do here: Take the hurricanes to get to paradise.”
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Isabelle Taft
South Carolina residents should be prepared for historic flooding this week, Gov. Henry McMaster said at a briefing. “This is an animal that we don’t think that we have seen before,” he said.
Isabelle Taft
Kim Stenson, director of the state’s emergency management division, said Debby’s effects could be similar to the record-setting rainfall in South Carolina in October 2015.
Sara Novak
Reporting from Charleston, S.C.
The streets of downtown Charleston, S.C., are largely empty, aside from a few meandering tourists in plastic ponchos and oversized umbrellas. Most of the shops closed early because of the storm, and many storefronts are packed tightly with sandbags in preparation for what forecasters say could be catastrophic flooding in the coming days.
Judson Jones
Meteorologist
Debby’s center is near the Georgia-Florida border and is expected to turn more easterly and eventually move back over water late Tuesday, according to the latest National Hurricane Center update. Forecasters reiterated that the sluggish forward motion of Debby would allow for extremely large amounts of rainfall over the Southeastern U.S. The storm could restrengthen and make a possible second landfall in the Carolinas on Thursday.
Patricia MazzeiIsabelle Taft and Elisabeth Parker
Debby came ashore in North Florida but flooded the Gulf Coast farther south.
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Debby left a trail of flooding along Florida’s Gulf Coast, in the much more densely populated cities far from the storm’s center.
Residents of the Tampa Bay area, who have gotten used to flooding during storms and high tides even on sunny days, saw waters begin to rise on Sunday. On Monday, hours after Debby came ashore as a Category 1 hurricane in Florida’s Big Bend, which is farther north, some places continued to see waters in their streets, as the tide peaked early in the afternoon.
None of it appeared as disastrous as last year, when Hurricane Idalia, a much more intense Category 3 storm, took a similar path that caused widespread flooding.
Still, emergency workers had to help rescue some residents in the Pinecraft neighborhood of Sarasota Springs, some 230 miles south of where Debby made landfall in Steinhatchee, Fla., and in Centre Lake, a subdivision in Manatee County, north of Sarasota.
Officials in Manatee County released water from Lake Manatee to maintain water levels and to release pressure from the Manatee Dam. Residents downstream of the dam were notified and urged to relocate, as emergency workers deployed to assist, the county said.
In flood-prone neighborhoods like Shore Acres, in St. Petersburg, residents anxiously watched to see if the water would intrude into their homes. Along the Hillsborough River in Tampa, Helen D’Avanza, 32, a third-generation Floridian, was marooned by the high tide, which had flooded the street in front of her apartment building.
“I genuinely love living in Florida and being near the coast, but climate change and rising water are the primary reasons why I won’t buy a home here,” she said.
“I feel it in my bones that should our luck run out and Tampa gets hit directly by even a Category 2 storm, it would be catastrophic,” she added.
In Tarpon Springs, about 30 miles northwest of Tampa, ankle-deep water remained in some areas on Monday afternoon.
April Dillender, 31, walked through the water to check on her beverage shop in Dodecanese Boulevard in Tarpon Springs. She opened the business about six months ago and watched the cameras all night to see if water had seeped in. It never did.
“We have a lot of money in our equipment,” she said. “It was nerve-racking to worry about our livelihood.”
On Sunday, the water surged as far south as Fort Myers Beach, a barrier island that was utterly devastated two years ago by Hurricane Ian, a Category 4 storm.
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Ian flooded Bruce and Denise Canedy’s home with 14 feet of water in September 2022. Debby at first seemed to pose no threat. But Mr. Canedy watched on Sunday afternoon as heavy rain filled the street and then two inches of water crept into their home’s bottom floor, which contains a guest room, bathroom and storage area but not their primary living space.
“My fear is, I cannot work another whole day sucking up water with a Shop-Vac, dumping it out,” Ms. Canedy, 67, said. “I can’t mentally or physically do it again. I just can’t.”
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John Keefe
Weather Data Editor
The National Weather Service issued an uncommon “flash flood emergency” for an area of northern Florida that includes Lake City after local officials reported more thunderstorms and heavy rain coming down in a spot where 8 to 12 inches of rain had already fallen.
Isabelle Taft
About 500 residents of a Sarasota neighborhood have been evacuated from their homes as Phillippi Creek swells with rain from Debby, said Cynthia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Sarasota Police Department. She said it was “highly unusual” to see such dramatic flooding inland rather than in the city’s coastal areas.
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Isabelle Taft
Rescues are still underway as rain from Debby’s outer bands continues to fall. “We’re just trying to do as much as we can before the sun goes down,” McLaughlin said.
Patricia Mazzei
Reporting from Miami
Governor DeSantis said that about 250,000 Florida customers remained without power. About 450,000 homes and businesses have had their power restored, he said.
Patricia Mazzei
Reporting from Miami
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said on Monday afternoon that state officials anticipate more flooding in the northern part of the state, even as the storm moves away. “As southern Georgia gets soaked, that water makes it way down to Florida as well.”
Patricia Mazzei
Reporting from Miami
Four deaths have been attributed to Debby in Florida so far, DeSantis said. Two people died in a traffic accident in Dixie County and one in Hillsborough County. A child was killed by a falling tree in Levy County, he said.
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Nichole Manna
Reporting from Savannah, Ga.
Parking garages in downtown Savannah are hitting capacity after residents in flood-prone areas were encouraged by officials to park on high ground to avoid potential flooding
Nichole Manna
Reporting from Savannah, Ga.
Officials in Savannah, where a curfew will take effect at 10 p.m., said they plan to close about 19 streets on Monday evening that are prone to flooding. Chatham County also issued a 10 p.m. curfew, and its emergency management director, Dennis T. Jones, said during a news conference that officials expect “unprecedented levels of rainfall and unprecedented flooding potential.”
Patricia Mazzei
Reporting from Miami
Officials in Manatee County, Fla., north of Sarasota and far south of where Debby came ashore as a hurricane, said they released water from Lake Manatee to maintain water levels and release pressure from the Manatee Dam. Residents downstream of the dam were notified and urged to relocate as emergency workers deployed to assist.
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Judson Jones
Meteorologist
In the latest update from the National Hurricane Center, forecasters said that Debby's center continues to churn over northern Florida but will begin a turn toward the east. The center will move across southeastern Georgia tonight and Tuesday before moving offshore of South Carolina late Tuesday into Wednesday.
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Judson Jones
Meteorologist
Key things to watch as Debby moves through the Southeast in the next day.
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Now that Hurricane Debby has made landfall, the most immediate concern is the pounding rainfall in northern Florida and the damaging winds that will continue near the storm’s center. Hurricane-force winds of at least 74 miles per hour extend about 25 miles from the center of the storm and will continue through the morning hours, before it weakens to a strong tropical storm.
Farther from the center, from Tampa, Fla., to Savannah, Ga., a few tornadoes are possible within the storm’s rain bands.
As the morning progresses, look for Debby to slow down significantly. A hurricane’s forward speed is typically about 15 to 20 miles per hour, but Debby’s is currently 10 miles per hour and is expected to slow even more. Following a trend we have seen over the past decade, Debby is expected to stall, creating a potentially catastrophic flooding event, like Hurricanes Harvey, Dorion and Florence did.
By Monday afternoon, heavier rain will begin to fall in the low country of Georgia and South Carolina as Debby inches closer to the Atlantic. The exact track will determine which city gets the worst rainfall. Charleston, S.C., and Savannah are likely to see 10 to 20 inches of rain, with some areas possibly even reaching 30 inches, as the week progresses.
There is only a 0.2 to 0.1 percent chance of this type of rainfall event occurring in any given year across this region.
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