Tropical Storm Debby churns up the East Coast, and affects weather as far away as the Great Lakes

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Tropical Storm Debby pushed bad weather up the East Coast on Wednesday, colliding with other systems and bringing no respite to residents as far away as the Great Lakes and New Jersey, where heavy rain flooded highways and streets and stranded motorists. Officials in New York told people in basement apartments to prepare to flee.

Debby has already drenched Southern states for days as it churned slowly across Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.

But a sequence of weather events Tuesday evening caused intense storms well north of the tropical storm's center.

Some moisture streamed out ahead of Debby and interacted with a frontal boundary that was draped across Long Island, New York, and through Pennsylvania and up to the Great Lakes, said Scott Kleebauer, a meteorologist with the national Weather Prediction Center.

There was also a disturbance that was exiting the Great Lakes region at that time. So the combination of these things caused multiple periods of showers and thunderstorms that produced significant rainfall.

Severe thunderstorms soaked most of New Jersey on Tuesday night, causing moderate flooding and leaving thousands without power. As much as 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain fell in some southern New Jersey communities in less than four hours.

Emergency officials warned of potential flash flooding, flying drones with loudspeakers in some New York City neighborhoods to tell people in basement apartments to be ready to flee at a moment’s notice. Multiple water rescues were reported in New York City and surrounding areas.

Nearly 340,000 customers were without power in Ohio following storms there, according to PowerOutage.us.

Yet still, the most rain from Debby so far has fallen in the South.

High water streamed into the home of Michael Jones on Monday evening in Savannah, Georgia. His furniture began to float, and the water was too deep to escape. He said he spent a sleepless night on his kitchen table before firefighters arrived in boats the next morning and helped him out of the house.

“It was hell all night,” Jones said.

A spot near Lake City in north Florida leads the nation in total rainfall from Debby at a whopping 19.67 inches (50 centimeters), according to national Weather Prediction Center.

Meanwhile, the “imminent failure” of a dam in southeast Georgia was threatening to swamp a mobile home park and other areas downstream, the National Weather Service said in a flash flood warning Wednesday afternoon.

“If the dam breaks, flash flooding will occur immediately downstream of the dam,” the weather service said.

The Cypress Lake Dam is in Bulloch County, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of Savannah.

Another area of concern on Wednesday was southeastern North Carolina, where Hurricane Matthew caused a historic billion-dollar flood in 2016. Two years later, many of those records were broken during Hurricane Florence. Both storms killed dozens.

The National Weather Service warned up to 9 inches (23 centimeters) of rain could fall west of Wilmington, North Carolina, in areas that already saw heavy rains overnight.

Charleston officials lifted a curfew Wednesday following heavy rains that caused flooding and closed dozens of roads Monday and Tuesday. The city experiences floods several times a year because of rising sea levels.

The lunch crowd was pouring into the Brown Dog Deli in downtown Charleston after two days of preparing for and hunkering down in Tropical Storm Debby.

“We’ve got a lot of locals walking in after being cooped up for two days looking for a good meal,” said Liz Denney, the kitchen manager for the deli which sells and eclectic mix of sandwiches and sides like the Folly Beach Crunch Wrap with turkey, bacon, sea salt chips, honey mustard and guacamole.

The restaurant does flood, and a little water got around the sandbags employees put up Monday. But they have had worse flooding other times in the past year, Denney said.

The deli closed early Monday and couldn’t open Tuesday if they wanted to because of Charleston’s curfew. But Denney said the standing water and the occasional interruption is just part of living on the coast.

“It comes with the territory,” Denney said.

The first words from the person answering the phone at the deli Wednesday were: “Yes, we’re open.”

The center of Debby was over the Atlantic Ocean on Wednesday afternoon, 55 miles (89 kilometers) east-southeast of Charleston, South Carolina, the National Hurricane Center said. The tropical storm could make a second landfall in either North Carolina or South Carolina, expected late Wednesday or early Thursday.

But its core was surrounded by drier air and the worst rainfall was falling hundreds of miles to the north, into eastern North Carolina before spreading into southeast Virginia. Both declared a state of emergency. Forecasters warned 5 inches (13 centimeters) of rain could fall from South Carolina to Vermont through this weekend.

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, WTSP-TV reported.

President Joe Biden approved emergency declarations making federal disaster assistance available to Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.

Debby is finally forecast to pick up speed Thursday before weakening inland as the weather moves north over North Carolina and Virginia into the Washington, D.C. area by Saturday.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signed a state of preparedness declaration that coordinates preparations for the storm without declaring a state of emergency.

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Collins reported from Columbia, South Carolina. Contributors include Jeff Martin in Atlanta and Bruce Shipkowski in Toms River, New Jersey.