Hurricane Debby made landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast early Monday, causing power outages for hundreds of thousands as the U.S. Southeast braces for potentially historic rain levels and major flooding,Daily Trust reports.
Debby struck the Big Bend region as a Category One hurricane, the lowest on the five-stage scale, fueled by an unusually warm Gulf of Mexico.
“We have seen significant storm surge, inundation, and will continue to see flooding in various parts of Florida,” Governor Ron DeSantis reported on Monday.
He warned of “significant flooding events” in the coming days.
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More than 300,000 customers have lost electricity so far, according to poweroutage.us.
“We have a lot of restoration personnel ready to get it back on,” DeSantis assured.
The National Hurricane Center warned of life-threatening storm surges along the Gulf Coast, with some areas facing six to ten feet (1.8 to 3 meters) of inundation above ground level.
The storm is expected to cause catastrophic flooding with “potentially historic heavy rainfall” as Debby moves northeast across Georgia and South Carolina in the coming days, the NHC said.
However, Debby is weakening. The storm’s maximum sustained winds were 80 miles (130 kilometers) per hour at landfall but dropped to 75 mph shortly after.
Debby is forecasted to dump six to twelve inches of rain in parts of Florida, and as much as 20 to 30 inches in coastal Georgia and South Carolina by the week’s end, according to the NHC.
Authorities predict multiple days of heavy rainfall, potentially record-breaking levels, and severe flash flooding.
Mandatory evacuations were ordered for parts of Citrus County, Florida, with eight other counties under voluntary evacuation orders, local media reported.
The governors of Georgia and South Carolina have declared a state of emergency ahead of the storm’s arrival.
President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for Florida on Sunday, allowing federal aid to be expedited.
DeSantis has activated the state’s National Guard, with 3,000 service members on standby to assist with storm response.
