South Carolina: Charleston, South Carolina, officials announced a curfew starting at 11 p.m. Monday for the peninsula that makes up much of downtown and the older parts of the 350-year-old city as some of the heaviest rain from Tropical Storm Debby is expected to fall overnight.
Police will barricade all eight roads leading into the peninsula and only let essential workers and emergency personnel in or out. High-water vehicles will also be staged to go into the area as needed, Charleston Mayor William Cogswell said at a Monday evening news conference.
State officials don’t plan any evacuations in South Carolina for now as Tropical Storm Debby slowly spins toward the state.
Large-scale evacuations typically bring people inland from the coast, and forecasters say Debby’s biggest impacts could be as much as 30 inches (76 centimeters) of rain in localized areas throughout the state, causing floodwaters to rise quickly in small areas. So any evacuations will up to local leaders.
The White House said Monday that President Joe Biden has approved a request from South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster for an emergency declaration, following his earlier approval of a similar request from Florida.
In a statement, the White House said personnel from the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Coast Guard are deploying to the region and are prepared to support recovery efforts.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper declared a state of emergency Monday ahead of Debby’s anticipated rainfall. Flooding and power outages are expected to start Tuesday and continue through the rest of the week, according to North Carolina Emergency Management officials.
With Debby’s winds and rains expected to worsen overnight, officials for Savannah and surrounding Chatham County announced that an overnight curfew will take effect at 10 p.m. Monday and run to 6 a.m. Tuesday. The National Hurricane Center says the region can expect rains that could exceed 20 inches (51 centimeters).
By Monday afternoon, the storm’s outer bands were lashing Tybee Island, home to Georgia’s largest public beach, blowing sheets of rain sideways and rattling street signs near the beach pier. The island of 3,100 residents east of Savannah was bracing for a potential double-dose of flooding from an expected 2 to 4 feet of storm surge on top of rainfall.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned that just because Tropical Storm Debby is moving toward Georgia, that doesn’t mean the state won’t continue to see threats as waterways north of the border fill up and flow south.
“It is a very saturating, wet storm,” DeSantis said during a briefing at the state’s emergency operations center. “When they crest and the water that’s going to come down from Georgia, it’s just something that we’re going to be on alert for not just throughout today, but for the next week.”
Mayor Alan Perry warned tourists and residents not to let their guard down with forecasts predicting up to 30 inches (76 centimeters) of rain this week from Debby.
“We don’t know how much rain is going to fall. But we have to prepare for the worst,” Perry said. “If that happens, we will see an event we have never seen on Hilton Head before.
”In a video posted on Facebook, Perry asked island residents and visitors to check on each other before the heavy rain starts — and maybe help the city out by checking storm drains. “If you are able to go out and pull some debris from those drains so they can drain, that’s is really key to preventing additional flooding,” he said.
A 13-year-old boy died Monday morning after a tree fell on a mobile home located southwest of Gainesville, Florida, according to the Levy County Sheriff’s Office. Officials reported other deaths as Debby moved inland.
A truck driver died early Monday on Interstate 75 in the Tampa area after he lost control of his tractor trailer, which flipped over a concrete wall and dangled over water before the cab dropped into the water below.
East of Steinhatchee, a tiny community in northern Florida near where the storm made landfall, a 38-year-old woman and a 12-year-old boy were killed late Sunday when the car she was driving on a wet road struck a median and then overturned off the road.
A 14-year-old boy who was a passenger was hospitalized with serious injuries, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
Tropical Storm Debby Claims 4 Lives; Curfew Imposed, Warning Issued to Residents and Tourists world-news World News | Latest International Global World News | Todays Breaking News Headlines
