While the specter of flooding remained as Tropical Storm Debby lingered offshore, many along Georgia’s 100-mile coast began to clean up and breathe a sigh of relief Tuesday as the system’s heaviest rains moved into neighboring South Carolina.
Forecasts over the weekend had predicted Tropical Storm Debby could dump 20 inches of rain or more on Savannah and other areas along the coast, which would have flirted with the state’s all-time rainfall record.
Debby still soaked parts of Georgia’s coastal plain with as much as 10 inches of rain — and more is expected to fall in the next 48 hours. Parts of Savannah and the coast saw localized flooding, but ultimately not the “catastrophic” rain totals feared. Shifts in the storm’s track pushed the most extreme rainfall totals north to Charleston and other parts of the South Carolina Lowcountry, where widespread flooding was reported.
“We dodged a bullet,” a police officer said Tuesday morning in Valdosta, as crews cleaned up debris and repaired damaged power lines and traffic signals.
Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
Neil Dixon, a lead forecaster at the National Weather Service’s Charleston office, which also covers the Savannah area, said Debby was expected to drift slowly off the Georgia and South Carolina coast Tuesday. As it lingers over the warm waters in the area, Dixon said the storm was expected to regain some strength and could continue to lash Savannah with gusty winds and another four inches or more of rain through Friday morning.
He warned that Savannahians should not let their guard down quite yet. So far, Debby has been blamed for at least five deaths, including a 19-year-old man who was killed Monday after a large tree fell onto a home in Moultrie, about 40 miles northwest of Valdosta.
“It’s a very slow-moving storm, the circulation is quite large, and there’s a lot of atmospheric moisture still to wring out of this thing,” he said.
The biggest remaining threat to Georgia residents is the potential for wind gusts to continue to knock waterlogged trees or limbs onto homes and property.
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Twisting oak trees draped in Spanish moss are part of Savannah’s trademark charm, but the ancient trees can be a menace in hurricanes and tropical storms, particularly after heavy rains.
It came as no surprise to find tree debris scattered Tuesday across neighborhoods like Ardsley Park and Isle of Hope after Monday’s heavy rains. As chainsaw-wielding residents cleaned up, some paused just long enough to say how fortunate they felt that Debby didn’t bring more damage to the area.
Emergency shelters at the Savannah Civic Center and Enmarket Arena served about 30 residents displaced by Debby’s rains.
Savannah also housed 45 residents in another shelter at the Tompkins Regional Center, located on the city’s western edge.
Both the Port of Savannah and the Port of Brunswick were closed Tuesday, but terminals at both facilities were expected to reopen in phases on Wednesday. Overall, Port of Savannah officials said its cargo handling equipment and facilities were “in good shape” after the storm.
The South Carolina Ports Authority said the Port of Charleston would operate with reduced hours Wednesday. It was not immediately clear how long the curtailment would last and whether any shipments would be diverted from Charleston to Georgia’s ports as a result.
‘Don’t never drain like it should’
Sporadic flooding was reported in some Georgia communities, including around Brunswick.
In the College Park neighborhood on the northeast side of the city, Debby’s rainfall turned backyards and a section of Palamor Drive into a lake.
Retirees Willie Adam and his wife Theresa have lived in their 1960s ranch home on the street for more than 50 years. Looking out the kitchen window to a backyard filled with at least a foot of water, Adam said the couple has dealt with persistent flooding for decades. Their home wasn’t damaged this time, but Adam said he feels the city should do more to address the problem.
Credit: Ligaya Figueras
Credit: Ligaya Figueras
“It don’t never drain like it should,” said Adam, 78, who placed sandbags at the front and rear entrance to his home in preparation for Tropical Storm Debby. “They claim to get money every year to fix the ditch,” he said, “but they never did nothing.”
About an hour east in Blackshear, Fire Chief Bucky Goble said the 8 inches of rain Debby dropped on Monday and Tuesday forced his department to use sandbags to protect about 10 houses from flooding. He said it was the first time in years he could recall needing to do so.
“They had water coming in up under the doors and walls,” he said Tuesday. The water had since receded despite a steady, misting drizzle early Tuesday afternoon.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Georgia Power, the state’s largest electric utility with 2.7 million customers, said the company had restored electricity to more than 100,000 customers and was working on respond to approximately 11,000 more impacted by the storm. More than 23,000 customers of rural electrical membership cooperatives (EMCs) were also without electricity Tuesday, down from roughly 40,000 the day prior. Most of the outages were concentrated around the Valdosta area, which was lashed by the strongest winds after the storm made landfall on Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 1 hurricane.
While power outages remained an issue in pockets of the state, other parts were already returning to normal.
Less than 12 hours after Debby swept through St. Simons Island, a few surfers and boogie boarders were catching choppy waves. Walkers and joggers were also resuming their morning beach exercise routines.
While the catastrophic outcomes some had feared from Debby did not materialize, it may not be long before Georgia faces another threat from the tropics. Sea surface temperatures are still far above normal — a product of human-caused climate change — and that creates conditions that are ideal for more storms to form.
Back in May, federal forecasters predicted this hurricane season would produce between 17 and 25 named storms, the most it has ever projected for the Atlantic Basin. And with the peak of hurricane season typically occurring in mid-September, the risk of storms will remain well into the fall.
Staff writers Kelly Yamanouchi and Joe Kovac Jr. contributed to this report.
