Debby turned deadly as it continues to roar across Florida after it made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane Monday.
Authorities reported that a 13-year-oldboy died after a tree fell on a mobile home located southwest of Gainesville, Florida.
Officials reported other deaths as Debby moved inland.
A truck driver died early Monday on Interstate 75 in the Tampa area after he lost control of his tractor trailer, which flipped over a concrete wall and dangled over water before the cab dropped into the water below.
East of Steinhatchee, a tiny community in northern Florida near where the storm made landfall, a 38-year-old woman and a 12-year-old boy were killed late Sunday when the car she was driving on a wet road struck a median and then overturned off the road. A 14-year-old boy who was a passenger was hospitalized with serious injuries, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
Hurricane Debby made landfall near Steinhatchee on the Florida coast early Monday morning bringing with it the potential for record-setting rains, catastrophic flooding and life-threatening storm surge.
The storm will continue to move northeast across the state and head towards Georgia and the Carolinas. More than 300,000 people remained without power in Florida and Georgia on Monday afternoon, down from a peak of more than 350,000, according to PowerOutage.us and Georgia Electric Membership Corp.
A tornado watch also was in effect for parts of Florida and Georgia on Monday.
A Tornado Watch is in effect for north central Florida and southern Georgia until 6 p.m. Monday.
Hurricane Debby is likely to stall off the coast of South Carolina on Wednesday, creating a major flooding issue for the state. Up to 20 inches of rain could fall in Charleston this week.
Winds will continue out of the south today, around 20 mph. Gusts up to 30 are possible.
Scattered thunderstorms are also still possible as the outer bands move through. It won’t rain all day, but brief downpours are possible throughout the day.
Officials also warned of life-threatening storm surge along Florida’s Gulf Coast, with 6 to 10 feet (1.8 to 3 meters) of inundation expected Monday between the Ochlockonee and Suwannee rivers.
There’s some really amazing rainfall totals being forecast and amazing in a bad way,” Michael Brennan, director of the hurricane center, said at a briefing. “That would be record-breaking rainfall associated with a tropical cyclone for both the states of Georgia and South Carolina if we got up to the 30-inch level.
Images posted on social media by Cedar Key Fire Rescue early Monday 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.
Flooding could last through Friday and is expected to be especially severe in low-lying areas near the coast, including Savannah, Georgia; Hilton Head, South Carolina; and Charleston, South Carolina. North Carolina officials were monitoring the storm’s progress.
Officials in Savannah said the area could see a month’s worth of rain in four days if the system stalls over the region.
“This is going to a significant storm,” Savannah Mayor Van. R. Johnson said during a press conference.
At a briefing Sunday afternoon, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned the storm could lead to “really, really significant flooding that will happen in North Central Florida.”
Debby is the fourth named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season after Tropical Storm Alberto, Hurricane Beryl and Tropical Storm Chris, all of which formed in June. In the Eastern Pacific, tropical storms Carlotta, Daniel and Emilia all churned over the ocean, but they weren’t threatening land.
On Saturday, DeSantis extended the state of emergency to cover a total of 61 counties withthe National Guard activating 3,000 guard members.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster made their own emergency declarations.
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Source: weartv
