CHARLESTON, S.C. – Days of rain forced the deluge-hardened residents of a South Carolina community to begin the near-ritualistic task of assessing damage left behind by Tropical Storm Debby, which continued spinning over the Atlantic Ocean and influencing thunderstorms from the East Coast to the Great Lakes on Wednesday.
In Huger, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) northeast of Charleston, Gene Taylor was waiting in the afternoon for a few inches of water to drain from his house along French Quarter Creek as high tide passed.
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Taylor saw the potential for flooding last week and started moving belongings out or up higher in his home. It’s a lesson learned the hard way — Taylor estimated that this is the fourth time he has had floodwater in his home in the past nine years.
“To save everything, we’ve learned from the past it’s better be prepared for the worst. And unfortunately, I think we got it,” Taylor said.
A few doors down, Charles Grainger was cleaning up after about 8 inches (20 centimeters) of water got into his home.
“Eight inches disrupts your whole life,” Grainger said. “You don’t get used to it. You just grin and bear it. It’s part of living on the creek.”
The National Hurricane Center warned that isolated areas could see up to 25 inches (64 centimeters) of rain from Debby. Additionally, the National Weather Service's office in Charleston said survey teams confirmed four-Debby related tornadoes.
In Georgia, at least four dams were breached northwest of Savannah in Bulloch County, but no deaths had been reported, authorities said at a briefing.
More than 75 people were rescued from floodwaters in the county, said Corey Kemp, director of emergency management, and about 100 roads were closed.
“We’ve been faced with a lot of things we’ve never been faced with before,” Bulloch County Commission Chairman Roy Thompson said. “I’m 78-plus years old and have never seen anything like this before in Bulloch County. It’s amazing what has happened, and amazing what is going to continue to happen until all these waters get out of here.”
For residents on Tappan Zee Drive in suburban Pooler, west of Savannah, Georgia, the drenching that Debby delivered came with a painful dose of déjà vu. In October 2016, Hurricane Matthew overflowed a nearby canal and flooded several of the same homes.
Located roughly 30 miles (50 kilometers) inland from the Atlantic Ocean, with no creeks or rivers nearby, the neighborhood doesn’t seem like a high-risk location for tropical flooding. But residents say drainage problems have plagued their street for well over a decade, despite local government efforts to fix them.
Debby also dumped rain on communities all the way up to the Great Lakes and New York and New Jersey. Moisture from the tropical storm strengthened another system Tuesday evening, which caused strong thunderstorms, 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 in New York City warned of potential flash flooding, flying drones with loudspeakers in some neighborhoods to tell people in basement apartments to be ready to flee at a moment’s notice. Multiple water rescues were reported in and near the city.
Nearly 330,000 customers remained without power in Ohio as of Wednesday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.us, following severe storms including two confirmed tornadoes. Utility officials with FirstEnergy’s Illuminating Company said via social media that power restoration would take days due to the damage.
In South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster said his state was just entering Act 2 of a three-act play, after more than 60 homes were damaged but roads and water systems were without significant problems.
“We’ve been lucky so far. Things have not been as bad as they could have been,” McMaster said.
Act 2 was to arrive 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.
The center of Debby was over the Atlantic on Wednesday evening, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) east-southeast of Charleston, the National Hurricane Center said. The storm first made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane early Monday along Florida's Gulf Coast.
A state of emergency was in effect for both North Carolina and Virginia. Maryland issued a state of preparedness declaration that coordinates preparations without declaring an emergency.
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.
In Charleston, South Carolina, the Brown Dog Deli closed early Monday and couldn’t open Tuesday due to a curfew decreed by local officials. On Wednesday the lunch crowd poured in after days of storm preparations and hunkering down. The first words from the person answering the phone were: “Yes, we’re open.”
“We’ve got a lot of locals walking in after being cooped up for two days looking for a good meal,” kitchen manager Liz Denney said.
Some water got around the sandbags that employees placed Monday, but the restaurant has had worse flooding other times in the past year, Denney said. The standing water and the occasional interruption, she added, is just part of living on the coast.
“It comes with the territory,” Denney said.
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Collins reported from Columbia, South Carolina. Associated Press journalists Russ Bynum in Pooler, Georgia; Bruce Shipkowski in Toms River, New Jersey; and Jeff Martin in Atlanta contributed.