CNN
By Elizabeth Wolfe and Robert Shackelford, CNN
(CNN) — Tropical Storm Debby made its second US landfall early Thursday – this time in South Carolina – and is unleashing torrential rain, tornadoes and destructive flooding in North Carolina.
One person is missing after a tornado damaged homes and a school in the state and there was also a rare flash flood emergency warning of life-threatening flooding.
The storm is set to drench several already-soaked states as it marches northward through the rest of the week.
Since crashing into Florida as a Category 1 hurricane on Monday, Debby has dumped more than a foot of rain over parts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina and killed at least five people. The deluges have engorged rivers, flooded roadways and trapped people in cars, homes and boats – and potentially dangerous heat is expected across the region in the coming days, threatening to complicate the recovery process.
Even more chaos is on the horizon as the storm, a reflection of the amplifying consequences of human-fueled climate change, heads toward the Northeast. Here’s the latest:
• Search and rescue ongoing after damaging tornado: A tornado tore through part of North Carolina’s Wilson County in the earliest hours of Thursday morning, leaving behind damage to a middle school, a church and multiple homes, officials said. Rescue crews are combing through one of these homes, which appears to have collapsed and is severely damaged, hoping to locate a missing person, a county spokesperson told CNN.
• At least 11 tornadoes confirmed: Debby has whipped up at least 11 tornadoes confirmed by the National Weather Service as of early Thursday. That includes four tornadoes in Florida, four in South Carolina and three in North Carolina. In addition to the Wilson County tornado, the service warned of a tornado in Snow Hill, North Carolina, early Thursday, describing it as “large, extremely dangerous and potentially deadly.” Another tornado was observed Thursday morning near Louisburg in the northern part of the state. A tornado watch remains in effect for than 5 million people in parts of eastern North Carolina and southeastern Virginia, including the cities of Raleigh and Virginia Beach.
• Flash flood emergency: Debby’s torrential rainfall cut off one North Carolina town from its surrounding areas after up to 8 inches of rain fell in just a few hours Wednesday night, according to a rare flash flood emergency issued by the National Weather Service. Officials in Bladenboro – located in the southern part of the state – reported 3 foot deep floodwater.
•Debby’s current path: The storm started to pick up speed and lost some strength Thursday morning after landfall as a 50 mph storm near Bulls Bay, South Carolina. It will continue to weaken as it moves into North Carolina by Thursday evening and into northern Virginia by Friday morning. Debby will accelerate through Pennsylvania and New York by Friday evening and through New England by early Saturday afternoon, bringing heavy rains and flash flooding to a region drenched by storms earlier this week.
• ‘Be prepared for a deluge,’ North Carolina governor says: Gov. Roy Cooper warned residents Wednesday to brace for major rain and flooding. “All North Carolinians across our state need to be prepared for a deluge,” Cooper said, describing the incoming threat as “more rain than most of us see in a month, or even several months.” Rainfall totals across the state could reach as high as 15 inches. Dangerous rip currents and storm surge up to 3 feet will persist along the Carolinas’ coasts Thursday.
• Disaster declarations across the Southeast: President Joe Biden has approved disaster declarations for Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas – all of which have been pummeled by Debby this week. More than 700 Federal Emergency Management Agency personnel have been deployed to the Southeast, and search and rescue teams are on standby to assist as needed, the agency said Wednesday.
• Georgia dam at risk of ‘imminent failure’: A dam in Bulloch County, Georgia – about 50 miles northwest of Savannah – is in danger of “imminent failure” as a result of Debby’s torrential rainfall, the National Weather Service in Charleston, South Carolina, said. Parts of the county have already suffered serious flooding, requiring water rescues in a mobile home park. But if the dam breaks, communities immediately downstream are at the greatest risk for more flooding and may be asked to evacuate.
• Triple-digit heat in store for Southeast: Potentially dangerous heat has been hovering over the Southeast in Debby’s wake and is expected to persist Thursday and through the weekend as storm recovery continues. While high temperatures in the upper 80s and lower 90s are expected, the heat indices – how the body feels under combined heat and humidity – could exceed 110 degrees, including in Steinhatchee, Florida, near where Debby made its first landfall.
‘It’s like National Geographic in our backyard’
Debby’s deluge has been a clear illustration of the impact of global warming caused by fossil fuel pollution, which is causing storms to get wetter and strengthen more quickly. Debby, for instance, tracked through near-record warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico, which helped it rapidly intensify before making landfall as a hurricane in Florida.
As Debby has churned through the Southeast, the storm has left behind disastrous scenes. Homes have been shredded by winds and swamped by floodwaters, and roads have been washed out or submerged, creating hazardous conditions for impacted communities.
In South Carolina’s Lowcountry, a home in Bluffton has become an alligator’s paradise as floodwaters turned Adrienne LeBlanc’s yard into an inviting swampland.
Though LeBlanc is no stranger to alligators – often seeing them sunbathing in the distance – she was surprised to wake up after heavy rains Wednesday to discover her backyard had been invaded by alligators.
“It’s like National Geographic in our backyard right now,” LeBlanc told CNN. She counted eight alligators swimming around her house and saw a few of them wrestling.
“Jokingly I told my husband, ‘When I wake up tomorrow that bad boy is going to be in our bedroom,’” LeBlanc said.
After 17 years of living in Bluffton, LeBlanc said she has experienced this level of flooding once – when Hurricane Matthew made landfall in the state in 2016.
South Carolina hasn’t seen a named storm make landfall on its shores since Hurricane Ian’s arrival in 2022 as a Category 1 storm. The last named storm to track across the state in any fashion was Tropical Storm Idalia in August 2023.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
CNN’s Andy Rose, Sharif Paget, Mary Gilbert and Kara Mihm contributed to this report.
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