Tropical Storm Debby Creating Catastrophic Flooding for the Southeast

At least five fatalities have been blamed on what was once Category 1 Hurricane Debby. The storm made landfall in the Big Bend region of Florida Monday morning and is now hammering the southeastern U.S. coastline with flooding rainfall. Here is the latest information on this developing flood situation.

Latest on Tropical Storm Debby

Officials have confirmed five deaths associated with Debby. A 13-year-old Florida boy died when a large tree crashed onto a mobile home. Three more fatalities were attributed to vehicle accidents in Florida. A 19-year-old man died Monday afternoon when a tree fell on a home porch in Moultrie, Georgia as Debby continued to the northeast throughout the day.

Debby is the second hurricane to make a direct strike on the U.S. this year. The primary impact associated with this tropical weather maker is the torrential rainfall. Over 20 inches of rain was recorded near Sarasota, Florida as the storm came onshore in the Gulf Coast region of the peninsula.

The hurricane was downgraded to a tropical storm roughly four hours after it made landfall. Despite the weakening, the system is still presenting life-threatening conditions as it moves up the Atlantic coastline with its immense amount of moisture. Millions of Americans are under flood watches in a zone from Tampa and up into Charleston, South Carolina.

As of Tuesday morning, there are over 100,000 customers without power in Florida, down from a high of about 324,000 in the dark during the peak of the storm activity. Moving to the north, there are about 27,000 customers without power in Georgia and another 16,000 outages reported in South Carolina.

What is Next for Debby