Horrifying images have revealed the devastating impact of Hurricane Debby after the storm made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend.
The massive torrents of rain have caused significant damage and have so far killed at least five people, two of whom were children.
Debby is centered about 60 miles north-northwest of Jacksonville, Florida, and forecasters expect the tropical storm to dump historic amounts of rain and cause catastrophic flooding from northern Florida to southeastern North Carolina through Friday night.
Although maximum sustained winds have decreased to around 45 miles per hour, the storm has devastated much of Florida’s Gulf Coast, leaving downed power lines, flooded streets and fallen trees.
Charleston could see more than two feet of rain over the next five days, while Savannah could see an entire summer’s worth of rainfall over the same period. As a result, both cities have been placed under a mandatory curfew.
The latest hurricane projections suggest South Carolina will be hit as early as 2 p.m. Eastern Time Thursday.
Due to Debby’s slow movement across land, some areas could be drenched with 10 to 30 inches of rain, which will likely worsen and cause even more damage to roads, bridges, and other key pieces of infrastructure.
The storm is expected to move slowly eastward across Georgia and then head out into the Atlantic Ocean on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Debby will turn northward and could strengthen before making landfall in South Carolina on Thursday night.
North Carolina will also be affected and the storm is expected to make landfall there sometime on Friday.
As the storm moves away from most of Florida, more than 133,000 customers in the state remain without power as of 1 a.m. Eastern time, according to power outage.us.
That number is more than 28,000 in Georgia, a number that will likely rise as winds and rain become more intense Tuesday morning.
All this comes as authorities have released the latest death toll from the devastating storm: five people have died so far, four in Florida and one in Georgia.
A 19-year-old man died in Moultrie, Georgia, after a tree fell on the side of a home Monday afternoon, marking the latest fatality.
Moultrie is located in southern Georgia, about 200 miles south of Atlanta.
A similar tragedy occurred in Levy County, Florida, where a 13-year-old boy was crushed by a tree that fell on his mobile home, the first life claimed by the storm.
The second person killed was driving a tractor-trailer near Tampa early Monday. The 64-year-old Mississippi man at the wheel lost control on the slippery road and plunged off an interstate bridge into a canal, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
Pictured: A tree fell on the house of a 13-year-old boy. The trunk fatally crushed him. He was the first to lose his life due to the hurricane.
Hillsborough County Fire Rescue is pictured pulling a tractor-trailer out of the water after it veered off the road early Monday morning.
Tragically, the truck driver did not survive the fall.
“The vehicle spun, struck a concrete wall along the outside shoulder and went over the wall,” the highway patrol wrote in a news release following the incident.
‘The trailer was left dangling from the bridge while the cab separated and fell into the Tampa Bypass Canal.’
Heartbreaking photos show members of the Hillsborough County, Florida, Fire Rescue team pulling the truck out of the water.
A 38-year-old woman and a 12-year-old boy were also killed in a car crash in Dixie County, Florida, on Sunday night.
A 14-year-old boy who was also in the car is in critical condition. CNN reported.
Witnesses to the single-vehicle crash told police the car lost control and “struck the guardrail in the center of the median, then veered off course, overturned and left the roadway to the right,” according to the Highway Patrol statement.
None of the three people were wearing seat belts, police added.
Police and rescuers are seen navigating what were once passable streets to rescue people from submerged homes.
A member of the Sarasota Sheriff’s Department is seen wading into waist-deep water.
In Gulfport, a city adjacent to Tampa, police found the body of a man after witnesses said he anchored his sailboat near Gulfport Veterans Park. FOX 13 reported.
The man has not yet been positively identified, but the man on the boat is believed to be Brian Clough, 48.
Clough reportedly lives on his boat with his dog, who was rescued by nearby boaters.
Further south in Sarasota, Florida, police and emergency services navigated flooded streets and successfully evacuated about 500 people from homes that were under water.
The city, which is about 60 miles from Tampa, received more than a foot of rain from the storm, over a month’s time.
Debby’s extreme flooding has also wreaked havoc on critical infrastructure across the state.
One example occurred in southern Hillsborough County near Tampa, where a 15-foot stretch of road completely collapsed because an inactive sinkhole was blasted open by rushing water.
Authorities closed the road to traffic on Monday.
Brian Clough, another alleged victim of the deadly tropical storm, is pictured with his dog.
A 15-foot stretch of road in southern Hillsborough County near Tampa has completely collapsed thanks to a dormant sinkhole that was opened up by gushing water.
Sailboats docked in Tampa Bay are seen untied and crashing into the seawall
A transport truck is found overturned on Independence Parkway in Tampa
Meanwhile, this family decided to take their all-terrain vehicle out for a spin, testing it on the now completely flooded streets of eastern Hillsborough County.
Due to Debby’s slow movement across land, some areas could be drenched with 10 to 30 inches of rain, which will likely worsen and cause even more damage to roads, bridges, and other key pieces of infrastructure.
As the situation worsens across the South, governors are taking response strategies seriously.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has deployed 2,000 state National Guard troops to assist with evacuations and rescues.
Roy Cooper, the governor of North Carolina, a state not yet affected, has preemptively declared a state of emergency.
President Joe Biden also approved requests for emergency declarations from Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, a move that will mobilize relief efforts.
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