Debby threatens to unleashing historic rains in Florida and parts of the southeastern United States, whose populations are found under alert due to this cyclone that moves with sustained winds of 85 kilometers per hour and has caused the death of four people, including a minor. Local media and social networks publish images of flooded streets, both from rain and from the sea, as well as fallen trees and poles and seriously damaged structures, and even 25 packages of cocaine They reached the shores of Cedar Key Island.
Debby is the second Atlantic hurricane of the season to make landfall in the United States after Berylwhich hit Texas last July, leaving at least 23 dead and power outages in several parts of the state for days amid an extreme heat wave. So far this hurricane season in the Atlantic basin, which began on June 1, four tropical storms have formed, AlbertoBeryl, Chris and Debby. This Atlantic hurricane season is expected to be one of the most active and intense in decades, with the formation of up to 25 storms and 13 hurricanes.
Florida Governor, Ron DeSantisconfirmed this afternoon the information released by the Levy County Sheriff’s Office, according to which a 13-year-old minor died today after a branch fell on his home in Fanning Springs in the midst of the storm. Three other people have died in traffic accidents attributed to Debby, DeSantis added during a press conference.
Two of those deaths have been reported in Dixie County and one in Hillsborough County. The Debby Center made landfall on Monday morning as a Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale, with a maximum of 5, in the town of Steinhatchee, on the northwest coast of Florida, about 32 kilometers (20 miles) south of where less than a year ago the hurricane made landfall. Hurricane Idalia. The governments of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina declared a state of emergency due to Debby, which was downgraded to a tropical storm during the day.
Storm surge risk
According to the US National Hurricane Center (NHC), this afternoon Debby is moving northeast at 9 kilometers per hour (6 miles per hour), a slow pace that will cause the Storm conditions are expected to continue throughout this week and in some areas more than 30 inches (760 millimeters) of rain could accumulate. Coastal areas in the Big Bend, a section of northwest Florida that lies within the Panhandle, could see up to 20 inches (50 centimeters) of rain, according to state officials.
“There will be a lot of rain across the state and we will see the effects of that not only today but in the days to come,” DeSantis said today, who said that the rain will continue even when Debby has moved away from the state. Added to this is the storm surge riskwhich in northwest Florida could raise sea levels up to about 10 feet (3 meters) above average.
The head of the Miami sector of the Border Patrol, Samuel Briggs II, announced that the storm washed ashore in Cedar Key, in the northwest of the state, 25 packages with almost 32 kilos of cocaine, equivalent to one million dollars.
250,000 homes without electricity
Nails 250,000 homes and offices in Floridamostly in the Big Bend, are found still without electricity Monday, DeSantis said, adding that up to 450,000 customers had had their power restored throughout the day. In Florida, up to 17,000 workers have been deployed to carry out the restoration. power restoration.
He Tallahassee International Airportthe capital of this state, remained closed for much of the day, while other major airports in the state, such as Orlando and Tampa, reported flight cancellations and postponements.
In Georgia, where as in South Carolina they can be produced in the “catastrophic floods” in the coming daysaccording to the NHC, the outer bands of Debby have already left more than 22,000 customers without electricityaccording to the specialized website PowerOutage.us. After making landfall in a sparsely populated area of Florida, Debby is expected to reach southern Georgia between tonight and Tuesday.
In anticipation of the storm’s arrival, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp activated more than 2,000 members of the State Guard for recovery efforts on Monday. Van Johnson, mayor of the town of Savannahon the coast of Georgia, decreed the curfew from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Tuesday local time, an example that Chatham County has followed.
Source: Lasexta
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