Debby made landfall in northern Florida Monday morning as a Category 1 hurricane, bringing heavy rain, flooding and "life-threatening" storm surge, forecasters said.
Debby made landfall about 7 a.m. Monday near Steinhatchee with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph, bringing the rural Big Bend region its second hurricane in less than a year, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Debby was expected to slow and turn northeast, meandering across north Florida and southeast Georgia later Monday, with the hurricane center saying it could produce “catastrophic flooding in some locations.”
By late Monday morning, Debby had been downgraded to a tropical storm as it moved over Florida. The storm was expected to move off the southeast U.S. coast late Tuesday, and it could potentially come back inland over South Carolina on Thursday.
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Steinhatchee is in Taylor County, roughly 90 miles south of Tallahassee, and is a tiny community with less than 1,000 residents. On Aug. 30, 2023, Hurricane Idalia made landfall in Taylor County’s Keaton Beach with maximum sustained winds of 125 mph and storm surge of 7 to 12 feet along the coast. It then caused widespread damage as it moved across North Florida.
“Right now, we are to trying secure everything from floating away," said Sheryl Horne, whose family owns the Shell Island Fish Camp along the Wakulla River in St. Marks, Florida, where some customers moved their boats inland. "I am used to storms and I’m used to cleaning up after storms."
Debby is believed to be responsible for at least one death in Florida. In Levy County, officials said a tree fell over onto a mobile home, crushing and killing a 13-year-old boy who was inside.
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Debby, potentially a historic rainmaker, started pounding the Gulf Coast on Sunday, and more than 150,000 utility customers were without power Monday morning, including more than 25,000 Duke Energy Florida customers in the Tampa Bay region.
The state Division of Emergency Management said tornado watches and warnings were in effect across the state.
Nearly 214,000 customers were without power in Florida on Monday morning, according to PowerOutage.com.
Debby is the fourth named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season.
Forecasters had warned heavy amounts of rain from Debby could spawn catastrophic flooding in Florida, South Carolina and Georgia.
“There’s some really amazing rainfall totals being forecast and amazing in a bad way,” Michael Brennan, director of the hurricane center, said at a briefing. “That would be record-breaking rainfall associated with a tropical cyclone for both the states of Georgia and South Carolina if we got up to the 30-inch level.”
Debby moved across western Cuba on Saturday as a depression before it reached the eastern Gulf of Mexico, where it reached tropical storm status, the NHC said. Debby stayed over the open waters of the Gulf through the day on Sunday.
A hurricane warning was in effect for the Florida Gulf coast from the Suwannee River to the Ochlockonee River, while a hurricane watch was in effect for the Florida coast west of the Ochlockonee River to Indian Pass and the Florida coast east of the Suwannee River to Yankeetown.
The National Weather Service in Tallahassee said Monday morning that heavy flooding was the biggest concern in the Big Bend regions, with storm surge expected across Apalachee Bay.
In Marion County, which is inland and south of Gainesville, sheriff’s officials noted in a Facebook post Monday that crews were responding to reports of downed power lines and trees that have fallen on roadways and homes.
Images posted on social media by Cedar Key Fire Rescue early Monday showed floodwaters rising along the streets of the city, located south of where the storm made landfall. Water was "coming in at a pretty heavy pace,” the post said.
"This rainfall will likely result in areas of locally considerable flash and urban flooding, with river flooding expected," the NHC said.
Impacts in South Florida
The heavy rain over the weekend has moved out for the most part but additional scattered showers and storms are possible along with breezy conditions over the next couple of days.
A small craft advisory was in effect along with a high risk of rip currents.
Hurricane Debby has also caused significant travel delays in South Florida.
On Sunday, there were extremely long lines at the customer service counters at Miami International Airport.
According to airport management, some 107 flight arrivals and another 79 flights that were scheduled to depart from MIA were canceled Sunday afternoon.
The flight monitoring platform FlightAware says some 248 landings and takeoffs had been delayed due to bad weather.
