AT LEAST ONE person was killed as Tropical Storm Debby began lashing the US state of Florida today, with officials warning there could be historic levels of rain and potentially “catastrophic” flooding.
A 13-year-old boy died when a tree was blown onto a mobile home in Levy County, the sheriff’s office there said, after Debby made landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast earlier today as a Category One hurricane.
Authorities say the danger remains high as the storm moves over the state and into Georgia and South Carolina, despite the downgrade from hurricane status from the National Hurricane Center (NHC).
“This is a level four out of four risk for excessive rainfall,” Michael Brennan, director of the NHC, told reporters.
“We’re going to see the center of the system just crawl along the southeast coast of the United States for two to three days.
“This is going to result in a prolonged extreme rainfall event with potential for catastrophic flooding across coastal portions of Georgia, South Carolina, even extending up into North Carolina,” he said.
5 am EDT: Hurricane #Debby very near landfall in the Florida Big Bend. Life-threatening storm surge expected in portions of Florida and major flooding is forecast for the southeastern U.S. Here are the Key Messages. https://t.co/tW4KeGdBFb pic.twitter.com/iPUOesfYM6
— National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) August 5, 2024
Florida governor Ron DeSantis also warned of “significant” flooding over the coming days, and said the state had already seen storm surge and some water rising.
More than 300,000 customers have lost electricity so far, according to tracker poweroutage.us.
“We have a lot of restoration personnel ready to go to get it back on,” DeSantis said.
In Marion County, which is inland and south of Gainesville, sheriff’s officials noted in a Facebook post that crews were responding to reports of downed power lines and trees that have fallen on roadways and homes.
Images posted on social media by Cedar Key Fire Rescue earlier today showed floodwaters rising along the streets of the city, located south of where the storm made landfall. Water was “coming in at a pretty heavy pace,” the post said.
The NHC has warned of life-threatening storm surges along the Gulf coast, with up to 1.8 meters of inundation above ground level in some areas.
The storm will probably cause catastrophic flooding with “potentially historic heavy rainfall” when Debby moves northeast across Georgia and South Carolina over the next few days, the NHC said.
The agency added, however, that Debby was weakening. The storm’s maximum sustained winds were 130 kilometers per hour as the storm made landfall, but dropped to 112 kph shortly after that, resulting in its downgrade to Tropical Storm status.
Debby is expected to dump six to 12 inches of rain in parts of Florida, and as much as 20 to 30 inches in coastal Georgia, South Carolina, and parts of North Carolina before the week is over, the NHC said.
Mandatory evacuations have been ordered for part of Citrus County, Florida, with eight other counties under voluntary evacuation orders, local media reported.
The governors of Georgia and South Carolina declared a state of emergency ahead of the storm’s arrival.
President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for Florida yesterday, allowing federal aid to be expedited.
Governor DeSantis has activated the state’s National Guard, with 3,000 service members on standby to help with the response to the storm.
Meanwhile in the Florida Keys, Debby washed ashore 25 tightly wrapped packages of cocaine worth more than $1 million, according to a post on X by US Border Patrol acting chief patrol Agent Samuel Briggs II.
With reporting from AFP and Press Association
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