CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Tropical Storm Debby pushed bad weather up the East Coast on Wednesday, colliding with other systems and bringing no respite to residents as far away as the Great Lakes and New Jersey, where heavy rain flooded highways and streets and stranded motorists. Officials in New York told people in basement apartments to prepare to flee.
Debby has already drenched Southern states for days as it churned slowly across Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.
But on Tuesday evening, the moisture from Debby strengthened another storm system, which caused strong thunderstorms across the Great Lakes and in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey, according to National 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.
Emergency officials warned of potential flash flooding, flying drones with loudspeakers in some New York City neighborhoods to tell people in basement apartments to be ready to flee at a moment’s notice. Multiple water rescues were reported in New York City and surrounding areas.
Nearly 340,000 customers were without power in Ohio following storms there, according to PowerOutage.us.
Yet still, the most rain from Debby so far has fallen in the South.
A spot near Lake City in north Florida leads the nation in total rainfall from Debby at a whopping 19.67 inches (50 centimeters), according to national Weather Prediction Center.
Meanwhile, the “imminent failure” of a dam in southeast Georgia was threatening to swamp a mobile home park and other areas downstream, the National Weather Service said in a flash flood warning Wednesday afternoon. The Cypress Lake Dam is in Bulloch County, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of Savannah.
“If the dam breaks, flash flooding will occur immediately downstream of the dam,” the weather service said.
In South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster said the state was just entering Act 2 of a three-act play.
“We’ve been lucky so far. Things have not been as bad as they could have been,” McMaster said of heavy rains that damaged over 60 homes but did not cause significant problems to roads or water systems.
Act 2 is overnight into Thursday when Debby moves back onshore and heavy rain returns, this time to the northern part of the coast and inland. An additional 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) of rain could fall, said John Quagliariello, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Columbia.
“It may not be as catastrophic as what we were saying, but we still think as these rain bands develop they could sit over the same area for long periods of time, produce a lot of rainfall and a lot of flooding,” Quagliariello said.
The final act may come next week if enough rain falls upstream in North Carolina to cause major flooding along rivers as it flows to the Atlantic Ocean.
Another area of concern on Wednesday was southeastern North Carolina, where Hurricane Matthew caused a historic billion-dollar flood in 2016. Two years later, many of those records were broken during Hurricane Florence. Both storms killed dozens.
The National Weather Service said up to 9 inches (23 centimeters) of rain could fall west of Wilmington, North Carolina, in areas that already saw heavy rains overnight.
A state of emergency was in effect for both North Carolina and Virginia. Maryland issued a state of preparedness declaration that coordinates preparations for the storm without declaring a state of emergency.
The center of Debby was over the Atlantic Ocean on Wednesday afternoon, 55 miles (89 kilometers) east-southeast of Charleston, the National Hurricane Center said. The tropical storm could make a second landfall in either North Carolina or South Carolina, expected late Wednesday or early Thursday.
Debby first made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane early Monday along the Gulf Coast of Florida.
At least six 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.
Charleston, South Carolina, officials lifted a curfew Wednesday following heavy rains that caused flooding and closed dozens of roads Monday and Tuesday. The city experiences floods several times a year because of rising sea levels.
The lunch crowd was pouring into the Brown Dog Deli in downtown Charleston after two days of preparing for and hunkering down in Tropical Storm Debby.
“We’ve got a lot of locals walking in after being cooped up for two days looking for a good meal,” said Liz Denney, the kitchen manager for the deli which sells and eclectic mix of sandwiches and sides like the Folly Beach Crunch Wrap with turkey, bacon, sea salt chips, honey mustard and guacamole.
The restaurant does flood, and a little water got around the sandbags employees put up Monday. But they have had worse flooding other times in the past year, Denney said.
The deli closed early Monday and couldn’t open Tuesday if they wanted to because of Charleston’s curfew. But Denney said the standing water and the occasional interruption is just part of living on the coast.
“It comes with the territory,” Denney said.
The first words from the person answering the phone at the deli Wednesday were: “Yes, we’re open.”
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Collins reported from Columbia, South Carolina. Contributors include Jeff Martin in Atlanta and Bruce Shipkowski in Toms River, New Jersey.
