Weather

Live Updates: Tropical Storm Debby

by WFDD Staff and Associated Press

a man stands looking at a flooded street
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Randy Sikes speaks to his relatives on a mobile phone as he stands in residual rain water flooding the downtown area caused by Tropical Storm Debby, Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024, in Bladenboro, NC. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Updated 8/9 at 8:05 a.m.

According to data from Duke Energy, around 3500 customers are still without electricity in the WFDD listening area. Statewide, roughly 16,000 power outages remain.

FOX8 WGHP is reporting that a 78-year-old Rockingham County resident died Thursday after a tree fell on her home. Law enforcement says the call came in around 7:30 p.m. after a neighbor conducted a wellness check.

As of 8 a.m. the Yadkin River is below flood levels, but forecasted to rise to a minor flooding level later on Friday. That's according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Water Prediction Service.

Updated 8/8 at 6:25 p.m.

 

Updated 8/8 at 5:57 p.m.

Tornadoes spawned by Debby leveled homes, damaged a school and killed one person early Thursday, as the tropical system dropped heavy rain and flooded communities across North and South Carolina.

It only took 15 seconds for a tornado to devastate Genesis Cooper’s home in Lucama, North Carolina, a small town about 40 miles east of Raleigh. He almost slept through it — if not for an alert on his wife’s phone.

He, his wife and their 20-year-old son huddled in a bathroom with blankets. They felt vibrations and heard glass shattering before hearing a sudden boom.

“I can’t even describe it. It’s like, suction, that’s what it felt like,” Cooper said. “Like something is squeezing, like your ears are popping.”

The tornado was one of at least three reported overnight in North Carolina, and perhaps the most devastating. One person was found dead in a home damaged by the Lucama tornado, Wilson County spokesman Stephen Mann said in an email. No further details on the person were immediately provided.

Parts of the roof and walls of Cooper's house were torn off, while the side windows were busted out. But Cooper was calm, saying they were in God’s hands.

“This is just stuff. It can be replaced,” he said.

The superintendent of Wilson County Schools confirmed damage at Springfield Middle School, where sections of the walls and roof of the 6th and 7th grade halls are gone or compromised.

Drone footage showed portions of the school's roof ripped off, exposing rafters and ductwork. A section of wall had crumbled onto the soggy green lawn, which was strewn with twisted pieces of metal roof and shredded insulation.

Meanwhile, a dam north of Fayetteville broke Thursday morning as Debby drenched the area. Between 12 and 15 homes were evacuated, but no one was injured and no structures were damaged, Harnett County spokesperson Desiree Patrick said in an email.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said at a briefing Thursday that the state has activated more National Guard troops and added additional vehicles that can rescue people in floods.

About 100 miles south of Lucama, deputies in Bladenboro posted photos of a patrol car damaged by a fallen tree, as well as roads that had been washed out. Standing water a few feet deep covered parts of the tiny North Carolina town.

Townspeople had helped fill sandbags Wednesday before up to 3 feet of floodwaters backed into the downtown overnight. When the sun came up, water could still be seen bubbling out of manhole covers.

Forrest Lennon, the owner of Diamond Dave’s Grill in Bladenboro, was counting his blessings even though 5 inches of floodwater made its way into the restaurant. He and his wife have owned the place since September. The previous owner said 3 feet of water inundated the building during the last two serious hurricanes, Matthew and Florence.

“It could have been a lot worse,” Lennon said, adding that they did everything they could to prepare for the storm.

“We just came in here and got everything we could as high as we could up off the ground … and we just left and prayed for the best,” he said.

Debby was a tropical depression by late Thursday afternoon, with maximum sustained winds around 35 mph, the National Hurricane Center said. It made landfall early Monday on the Gulf Coast of Florida as a Category 1 hurricane. Then, Debby made a second landfall early Thursday in South Carolina as a tropical storm.

At least seven people have died due to the tropical weather.

Still, more flooding was expected in North and South Carolina. Up to 6 more inches of rain could fall before Debby clears those states. Parts of Maryland, upstate New York and Vermont could get similar rainfall totals by the end of the weekend, the weather service said.

Central parts of North Carolina up through Virginia were forecast to receive 3 to 7 inches of rain, with isolated areas getting up to 10 inches through Friday. The hurricane center warned of the potential for flash flooding.

Some residents of southeast Georgia were warned to brace for additional flooding Thursday even after Debby had cleared out for the Carolinas, as rivers swollen with rainfall overflowed their banks.

The Ogeechee River west of Savannah was forecast to reach its major flood stage Thursday night and crest early Sunday. Emergency officials in Effingham County called for some residents near the river to evacuate.

Officials in neighboring Chatham County, which includes Savannah, allowed residents to decide whether to leave, although rescue teams with boats had already retrieved 17 people from homes threatened by river flooding.

Chatham County Commission Chairman Chester Ellis said at a news conference to expect water where it hasn't been seen before.

“If you have a substantial amount of water in your yards, I would say evacuate now while you still have a chance,” he added.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster also warned Thursday that Debby's effects aren’t completely over because rain falling in North Carolina could swell rivers and cause flooding downstream.

“We’ve passed some dangers, but there’s still plenty,” McMaster said. “So don’t let your guard down yet.”

Back on the coast, Robert Chesnut stood in nearly a foot of water inside his Isle of Palms home with a rented an industrial pump that looked like a fire hose. After more than three hours, only about an inch of water had been pulled out of his house on the barrier island near Charleston.

And once the water is gone, there is still a lot of work to do.

“This is contaminated water,” Chesnut said. “These houses are on septic tanks. I hate to say it, but that’s fecal matter. You have to disinfect everything.”

Updated 8/8 at 5:04 p.m.

Updated 8/8 at 2:44 p.m.

Heavy rain and wind from Tropical Storm Debby wiped out the first round of the Wyndham Championship on Thursday, forcing the final regular-season event of the PGA Tour to start on Friday at rain-soaked Sedgefield Country Club.

The PGA Tour was expected to announce more details later in the afternoon after the storm came through. The course received 2 inches of rain from the early morning. Tour meteorologists said as much as 6 inches could fall by the end of the day.

A flash flood warning was in effect for the region.

The tournament decides the top 70 players in the FedEx Cup who advance to the postseason, which features a pair of $20 million tournaments and the Tour Championship. The winner of the FedEx Cup receives $18 million. The top 50 are assured of getting in all the $20 million signature events next year.

Among the possibilities was a Monday finish. The PGA Tour has weather guidelines that aim to complete 72 holes when possible. Another option could be a cut to the the nearest number to 60 players with a 36-hole final on Sunday.

Updated 8/8 at 2:27 p.m.

Duke Energy is reporting 122,049 customers without power as of Thursday afternoon. An outage map can be found here.

Duke Energy crews work on power lines

Duke Energy working on power lines on Lane Drive in Archdale. LORIE MCCROSKEY/WFDD

  

Updated 8/8 at 1:04 p.m.

This afternoon and evening, the National Weather Service still expects two to three inches of rainfall as Tropical Storm Debby’s center passes over the Triad.

Gail Hartfield, a meteorologist with the NWS says spurts of heavy rain will come and go through most of this afternoon, with conditions calming slightly as the storm moves past the Triad later tonight. 

While Hartfield says the storm will likely move down in status to a tropical depression, she warned that only means wind speeds will slow. Heavy rainfall could continue into the night. 

She adds that three tornadoes were either spotted or recorded touching down near population centers closer to Rocky Mount and Henderson in the last twenty-four hours. 

The Associated Press reported one tornado-related death this morning in the town of Lucama located an hour’s drive east of Raleigh. 

Hartfield urges residents in the Triad to avoid all forms of travel in the afternoon. 
 

Updated 8/8 at 12:31 p.m.

Updated 8/8 at 12:21 p.m.

Tropical Storm Debby is bringing heavy rainfall to the Triad, leading some school districts to cancel activities.

Surry County Schools was slated to begin classes today, but officials are delaying the start, citing concerns about flash flood conditions impacting student drivers and bus routes. The new start date will be Monday, Aug. 12. 

Guilford County Schools also announced closures today. Officials said district activities including band and athletics, and other summer programming would also be canceled. 

Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools followed suit, canceling elementary school open houses that were scheduled for this evening. 

The district says each school will make individual decisions about making up those events. 

Several other districts in the Piedmont including Lexington City Schools, the Alamance-Burlington School System and Rockingham County Schools have closed their buildings and called off scheduled activities. 

Many counties in the Triad are under a flash flood warning until 4 p.m. and a flood watch through Friday. 

 

Updated 8/8 at 11:06 a.m.

 

Updated 8/8 at 10:57 a.m.

 Tropical Storm Debby spawned damaging tornadoes that killed one person, flooded a town and temporarily shut down part of Interstate 95 early Thursday as it blew into North Carolina after making a second landfall overnight.

The storm was expected to churn up the East Coast, where residents as far north as Vermont could get several inches of flooding rain this weekend.

The National Hurricane Center says Debby came ashore early Thursday near Bulls Bay, South Carolina. Debby first made landfall 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 at 50 mph.

Debby wasn’t done flooding parts of eastern South Carolina and southeast North Carolina, and an additional 3 to 9 inches of rain is possible as the storm moves north, raising concerns of flash floods in mountainous areas of Virginia and West Virginia.

Debby also could bring more tornadoes Thursday in parts of North Carolina and Virginia, forecasters said. At least three tornadoes were reported overnight in North Carolina, including one around 3 a.m. that damaged at least four houses, a church and a school in Wilson County east of Raleigh, county officials said.

One person died in a home damaged by the tornado in Lucama, North Carolina, Wilson County spokesman Stephen Mann said in an email. No further details on the person were immediately provided.

Theresa Richardson hunkered down with her husband and granddaughter in the closet of their Lucama home as the tornado tore through about a mile away.

Debris struck the house. And they could hear the roof of nearby Springfield Middle School being ripped off. The home of one of her granddaughter's friends was destroyed from the tornado.

Richardson said this wasn’t the first time the area was struck by a tornado — her neighbors call the road they live on “Tornado Alley.”

The superintendent of Wilson County Schools confirmed damage at Springfield Middle School, where sections of the walls and roof of the 6th and 7th grade halls are gone or compromised.

“It was heartbreaking to see the school right after the event,” Superintendent Lane Mills said in a statement.

Meanwhile, about 100 miles south of Lucama, deputies in Bladenboro had posted photos of a patrol car damaged by a tree as well as roads that had been washed out. Standing water a few feet deep covered parts of the tiny North Carolina town.

In Huger, northeast of Charleston, South Carolina, Gene Taylor waited for the water to drain from his house along French Quarter Creek as high tide passed. He had learned the hard way to begin moving his belongings up or out of his home last week as Debby approached. Taylor figures this is the fourth time he has had floodwater in his home in the past nine years.

“We got caught with our pants down in 2015. We waited, didn’t think the water was going to come up as quick. But it did, and it caught us. We couldn’t even get the vehicles out,” Taylor said.

At least four dams were breached northwest of Savannah in Georgia’s Bulloch County, but no deaths had been reported, authorities said. More than 75 people were rescued from floodwaters in the county, said Corey Kemp, director of emergency management, and about 100 roads were closed.

“We’ve been faced with a lot of things we’ve never been faced with before,” Bulloch County Commission Chairman Roy Thompson said. “I’m 78-plus years old and have never seen anything like this before in Bulloch County. It’s amazing what has happened, and amazing what is going to continue to happen until all these waters get out of here.”

The neighbors on Tappan Zee Drive in suburban Pooler, west of Savannah, took Debby’s drenching with a painful dose of déjà vu. In October 2016, Hurricane Matthew overflowed a nearby canal and flooded several of the same homes.

Located roughly 30 miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean, with no creeks or rivers nearby, the neighborhood doesn’t seem like a high-risk location for tropical flooding. But residents say drainage problems have plagued their street for well over a decade, despite local government efforts to fix them.

Debby also dumped rain on communities all the way up to the Great Lakes and New York and New Jersey. Moisture from the tropical storm strengthened another system Tuesday evening, which caused strong thunderstorms, according to weather service meteorologist Scott Kleebauer.

“We had a multi-round period of showers and thunderstorms that kind of scooted from Michigan eastward,” Kleebauer said.

As much as 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain fell in parts of New Jersey in less than four hours, and New York City officials warned of potential flash flooding, flying drones with loudspeakers in some neighborhoods to tell people in basement apartments to be ready to flee. Multiple water rescues were reported in and near the city.

About 270,000 customers remained without power in Ohio as of Thursday morning, according to PowerOutage.us, following severe storms including two confirmed tornadoes.

All that water has to drain out to sea. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said his state was just entering Act 2 of a three-act play, after more than 60 homes were damaged but roads and water systems were without significant problems.

The final act may come next week if enough rain falls upstream in North Carolina to cause major flooding along rivers as they flow to the Atlantic Ocean.

A state of emergency was in effect for both North Carolina and Virginia. Maryland issued a state of preparedness declaration that coordinates preparations without declaring an emergency.

At least seven people have died due to the storm, five of them in traffic accidents or from fallen trees. The sixth death involved a 48-year-old man in Gulfport, Florida, whose body was recovered after his anchored sailboat partially sank.

 

Updated 8/7 at 4:27 p.m.

The extreme weather seen in places across the United States in recent weeks shows that it doesn't take a catastrophic hurricane to cause significant damage — the torrential rain from Tropical Storm Debby in parts of the Southeast is just one example.

The slow-moving system lingering over Georgia and the Carolinas Wednesday after coming ashore in Florida as a minimal Category 1 hurricane has flooded low-lying communities and combined with other weather to leave thousands without power in places as far away as Ohio and New York City. At least six people have died — several killed by falling trees, others on flooded roadways, and multiple states are under emergency declarations with more rainfall to come.

Van Johnson, mayor of Savannah, Georgia, told locals to "Hunker down" in a livestream as the storm came near. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre asked Americans during a press briefing "to remain vigilant, heed the warnings of local officials and visit ready.gov for tips on how to stay safe."

As weather patterns change due to global warming and damaging storms become more frequent, even in places where people thought they were relatively safe, experts say disaster preparation can make all the difference.

What should you do if you face record rainfall?

Well in advance of extreme weather, it's important to consider whether your home meets updated building codes and to become familiar with your insurance coverage, said Victoria Salinas, who leads the Federal Emergency Management Agency's resilience program.

As storms draw near, checking in on neighbors, signing up for real-time city, county and FEMA weather alerts and listening to the news and local officials are also key.

"Make sure that things like the gutters are clear," Salinas added. "If you live in an area where there are storm drains and stormwater systems, helping make sure that the water has a place to flow both on your property and on your block, is really important."

"Sandbags can play a really important role" if used correctly, she added. "Sandbags need to be outside of your door, against the door, where the water may likely enter. If the water is likely to be there for a long period of time, it's important to make sure that sandbags are also wrapped with plastic."

Should you try to evacuate or stay put?

If there are local orders to evacuate, people need to listen to them, gather important documents, get enough gas to drive out and be prepared to be away for an extended period of time, said Jeannette Sutton, associate professor at the University at Albany.

"Just because an event seems like it's not possible, I would hope that that wouldn't affect people's decision," she added. "Air on the side of caution."

As major storms move in, there often comes a point when leaving is more hazardous than staying put.

"Unfortunately we usually lose way too many lives in these big flood events because people try to drive through flooded roadways," said Phil Klotzbach, senior research scientist at Colorado State University's Department of Atmospheric Science.

Charleston, South Carolina, shut down all roads into the city's downtown peninsula for 32 hours to avoid high water rescues. Driving can also cause wakes that send floodwater over the tops of sand bags.

"Bottom line is we need you to stay home until this passes," Charleston Mayor William Cogswell said. "We especially don't need any yahoos driving through the water and causing damage to properties."

How can you prepare your home and belongings?

Moving keepsakes, furniture and things that are valuable to upper levels, if that's an option, and making sure sump pump batteries are fully charged are shorter-term ways to prepare, along with ensuring there's enough food, water and medical supplies, FEMA's Salinas said.

"If I had a car, I would probably try and put it in a parking structure, up above where the waters might flood so that my car doesn't flood," recommends Jeff Masters, founder of Weather Underground, now with Yale Climate Connections.

"Waterproofing your home is always a good idea," he said. "And it's always smart to not have your backup generators, for instance, down in the basement."

What can you do once a disaster has started?

If people aren't able to prepare for floods in time, they should move to the highest level of their home, experts say, or seek out a safe shelter.

However, if high wind and tornadoes are a threat, it could be dangerous to be too high up, experts say. That's where checking forecasts is critical.

Copyright 2024 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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