Debby, Now a Tropical Storm, Threatens Southeast With Tornadoes and ‘Catastrophic’ Flooding. At Least 5 Dead After Hurricane Makes Landfall
American Airlines aircraft at the carrier’s Miami hub
At least five people are known dead after Hurricane Debby slammed into the Big Bend region of Florida’s Gulf Coast.
Hurricane Debby arrived in Florida Monday morning, making landfall at 7 a.m. near Steinhatchee, a Gulf coastal community, the National Hurricane Center said. The storm had strengthened into a Category One hurricane late on Sunday and made landfall with 80 mph (129 km/h) winds.
The storm is far from over with the National Weather Service predicting everything from tornadoes to catastrophic flash flooding.
“Debby will slowly track across the Southeast the next several days,” the National Weather Service said in a late afternoon statement on Monday. “Tornadoes, catastrophic flash and urban flooding, coastal flooding, rip currents, strong gusty winds are all expected.”
Steinhatchee was partially submerged and residents were asked to remain inside their homes and to stay off the roads, which were subject to flash flooding after Debby dropped 6” (152 mm) of rain during its brief stay.
The situation wasn’t much different up and down the Big Bend. Lee Shapiro, a resident of North Naples, told The Travelist and Frequent Business Traveler that his home’s rain gauge had collected 10” (254 mm) on Monday by mid-afternoon.
Air travel was greatly impacted by the storm. As of 9 p.m. EDT on Monday, there had been over 8,000 flight delays in addition to 1,794 cancellations within, into and out of the United States, according to FlightAware, which tracks such information.
Airports throughout Florida including Miami, Tampa, Orlando, and Fort Lauderdale, saw hours-long flight delays and hundreds of cancellations. The airlines most affected by Debby were American, Southwest, Spirit, Delta, and United.
Even as Debby morphed into a tropical storm, it brought record-setting rain that was expected to cause flash flooding, with up to 30” (760 mm) possible in some areas, the National Hurricane Center said. Up to 18” (460 mm) was forecast in central and north Florida. A flash flood emergency was issued into Monday evening for the Lake City area, where up to a foot (305 mm) of rain had fallen and more precipitation there was expected.
Now a tropical storm that is menacingly moving up the coast, Debby is threatening the Southeast with torrential rain, flooding, downed trees, power outages, treacherous road conditions, as well as property damage.
A truck driver died on Interstate 75 in the Tampa area after he lost control of his tractor trailer, which flipped over a embankment wall and dangled over the edge before the cab dropped into the water below, and a 13-year-old boy died Monday morning after a tree fell on a mobile home southwest of Gainesville, the Levy County Sheriff’s Office reported.
In Dixie County, just east of Steinhatchee, a 38-year-old woman and a 12-year-old boy died in a car crash on rain-soaked roads Sunday night, and in southern Georgia, a 19-year-old man died Monday afternoon when a large tree fell onto a porch at a home in Moultrie, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Approximately 186,000 homes and businesses in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina were without power at 9 p.m. EDT according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks such information, down from a peak of 350,000 earlier in the day.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
