LUCAMA, N.C. (AP) — Tropical Storm Debby spawned destructive tornadoes that killed one person, flooded a town and temporarily closed part of Interstate 95 as the storm hit North Carolina early Thursday morning after its second landfall during the night.
The storm was expected to roil the East Coast, bringing residents as far north as Vermont. several centimetres of heavy rain this weekend.
The National Hurricane Center said Debby made landfall near Bulls Bay, South Carolina, early Thursday. Debby first landing as a Category 1 hurricane early Monday on the Gulf Coast of Florida. It was still a tropical storm Thursday morning with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph (80 km/h).
Debby is far from flooding parts of eastern South Carolina and southeastern North Carolina. As the storm moves north, another 3 to 9 inches of rain is possible, raising concerns about flash flooding in mountainous areas of Virginia and West Virginia.
Debby could also bring more tornadoes to parts of North Carolina and Virginia on Thursday, meteorologists said. At least three tornadoes were reported overnight in North Carolina, including one around 3 a.m. that damaged at least four homes, a church and a school in Wilson County east of Raleigh, county officials said.
One person died in a tornado-damaged home in Lucama, North Carolina, Wilson County spokesman Stephen Mann said in an email. No further details about the person were immediately released.
Theresa Richardson huddled with her husband and granddaughter in the closet of their Lucama home as the tornado raged about a mile away.
People stand outside a home that was damaged after a tree fell on it, in Avon Lake, Ohio, Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024. (Joshua Gunter/Cleveland.com via AP)
Debris smashed into the house. And they could hear the roof of the nearby Springfield Middle School being torn off. The house of one of their granddaughter’s friends was destroyed by the tornado.
Richardson said this wasn’t the first time the area had been hit by a tornado – her neighbors call the street they live on “Tornado Alley.”
The Wilson County Schools Superintendent confirmed damage to Springfield Middle School: portions of the walls and roof of the 6th and 7th grade halls are missing or damaged.
“It was heartbreaking to see the school in the immediate aftermath of the event,” Superintendent Lane Mills said in a statement.
About 161 kilometers south of Lucama, officials in Bladenboro had posted photos of a patrol car damaged by a tree and of flooded streets. Parts of the small town in North Carolina were covered by meters of water.
Many residents helped fill sandbags Wednesday before floodwaters up to 3 feet (91 centimeters) rushed downtown overnight. In the dark, city officials, councilors and residents helped stores salvage as much merchandise as possible, Police Chief Kevin Rouse said.
As the sun rose, water could still be seen gushing from manhole covers in the town of 1,600. Debby may not have been the worst storm to pass through the region, but Rouse said he watches every storm with concern.
Keon Johnson leaves his house in Pooler, Georgia, on his way to work, down a street that was flooded by Tropical Storm Debby on Monday and has yet to drain as of Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton)
“Even though it wasn’t a major hurricane, there was still a lot of water. If you get 6, 12, or 20 inches of rain, it’s totally catastrophic,” Rouse said.
In Huger, northeast of Charleston, South Carolina, Gene Taylor waited for the water to drain from his house on French Quarter Creek during high tide. Last week, as Debby approached, he learned the hard way to get his things upstairs or out of the house. Taylor estimates this is the fourth time in the past nine years that his house has been flooded.
“In 2015, we were caught with our pants down. We waited and thought the water wouldn’t rise so quickly. But it came and caught us. We couldn’t even get the vehicles out,” Taylor said.
At least four dams broke northwest of Savannah in Bulloch County, Georgia, but no fatalities were reported, authorities said. More than 75 people were rescued from the floodwaters in the county, said Corey Kemp, emergency management director, and about 100 roads were closed.
A tree is cut down in Bay Village, Ohio, as cleanup begins following devastating storms in northeast Ohio, Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024. (Joshua Gunter/Cleveland.com via AP)
“We’ve been faced with a lot of things we’ve never faced before,” said Roy Thompson, chairman of the Bulloch County Commission. “I’m over 78 years old and I’ve never seen anything like this in Bulloch County before. It’s unbelievable what’s happened and unbelievable what’s going to happen until all this water is gone.”
The neighbors on Tappan Zee Drive in the suburb of Poolerwest of Savannah, accepted Debby’s drenching with a painful dose of déjà vu. In October 2016, Hurricane Matthew flooded a nearby canal and inundated several the same houses.
The neighborhood is about 50 kilometers inland from the Atlantic Ocean and has no nearby streams or rivers, so it does not appear to be a high-risk area for tropical flooding. But residents say their street has suffered drainage problems for over a decade, despite local government efforts to fix them.
Debby also brought rain to communities as far north as the Great Lakes, as well as New York and New Jersey. The tropical storm’s moisture enhanced another system Tuesday night that produced strong thunderstorms, according to Weather Service meteorologist Scott Kleebauer.
Meanwhile, the National Weather Service has confirmed that two tornadoes touched down in northeast Ohio as a line of severe thunderstorms swept through the region Tuesday afternoon. The storms caused extensive damage and left hundreds of thousands of residents without power for several hours. No injuries were reported in any of the tornadoes.
Parts of New Jersey received up to 6 inches of rain in less than four hours, and New York City authorities warned of possible flash flooding. flying drones with loudspeakers in some neighborhoods, people in basement apartments were told to prepare to evacuate. Several water rescues were reported in and near the city.
All the water has to flow into the sea. South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster said his state was in the second act of a three-act drama, with more than 60 homes damaged but roads and water systems showing no significant problems.
The final act could come next week if enough rain falls upstream in North Carolina to cause severe flooding on rivers as they flow to the Atlantic.
North Carolina and Virginia declared states of emergency. Maryland issued a preparedness declaration that coordinates preparations without declaring a state of emergency.
At least seven people have died as a result of the storm, five of them in traffic accidents or from fallen trees. The sixth death is a 48-year-old man in Gulfport, Florida, whose body was recovered after his anchored sailboat partially sank.
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This story has been updated to remove an incorrect reference to rainfall totals in the Carolinas.
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Associated Press staff members include Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, Russ Bynum in Pooler, Georgia, Bruce Shipkowski in Toms River, New Jersey, Jeff Martin in Atlanta and Lisa Baumann in Bellingham, Washington.
