Tropical storm Debby has made a second landfall in South Carolina on its way up the U.S. East Coast, where residents as far north as Vermont could get several centimetres of rain this weekend.
The National Hurricane Center says Debby came ashore early Thursday near Bulls Bay, S.C. The storm is expected to keep moving inland, spreading heavy rain and possible flooding all the way up through the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast by the weekend.
Debby first made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane early Monday on the Gulf Coast of Florida. It is now a tropical storm with maximum sustained winds at 80 km/h.
While Debby produced less rain on Wednesday than the previous days, Rich Bann, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service warned that Thursday would be different.
“Moisture has pulsed back into Debby,” Bann said, noting that the storm picked up water as it spent the last day parked over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Georgia and South Carolina. “As Debby makes its way inland … the threat of heavy rains will lead to flooding concerns.”
Tropical storm Debby cut a path of destruction after making landfall in South Carolina on Thursday. Rainfall washed out roads and winds, reaching speeds of 85 km/h, felled trees and damaged buildings.
Bann said that by Friday Debby would be dumping up to 10 centimetres of rain on Virginia up into Pennsylvania, where ground in some patches was already soaked from other storms this week, heightening flooding concerns there. By the weekend, the storm could also produce rain of up to 10 centimetres in central New York state and into northern Vermont.
Debby was located about 35 kilometres northeast of Charleston and moving about seven km/h toward the northwest, with maximum sustained winds of 85 km/h.
Additional weakening is forecast today as the storm’s centre moves farther inland, the National Hurricane Center said.
Storm has killed at least 6
At least six people have died in Florida and Georgia in the wake of the storm, which made landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast on Monday as a Category 1 hurricane and headed northeast.
Governors in the Carolinas, Florida and Georgia have declared states of emergency. The storm has already left neighbourhoods and communities underwater, washing out streets and inundating homes across the region.
Emergency management officials were keeping a close watch as the rainwater drained into the numerous river systems that snake through the Carolinas. The National Water Prediction Service forecast that seven waterways would reach major flood levels before the weather event runs its course.
