Tropical Storm Debby settles into Lowcountry
By Delayna Earley and Amber Hewitt
The Island News
Monday night and into early Tuesday morning in northern Beaufort County was filled with tornado warnings, flash flood warnings and storm surge warnings, as Tropical Storm Debby made its way into the Lowcountry.
As of 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 6, more than 2,000 people were without power according to Poweroutage.us’ outage map with more than 10,000 Dominion Energy customers having reported power outages overnight.
Rain is still the biggest concern going forward into the week as the National Weather Service (NWS) is predicting “potential historic rainfall totals likely to produce areas of catastrophic flooding through at least Friday morning” as of their 6 a.m. briefing on Tuesday.
The NWS is anticipating the slow-moving storm will continue to impact the area through mid to late week potentially causing tropical storm force winds, storm surge and possible tornadoes.
River flooding is also a major concern due to the large amounts of rain expected in the Lowcountry and could “inhibit recovery efforts”.
On Tuesday morning, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Storm Prediction Center showed a report of downed trees at around 4 a.m. on Tuesday morning on Sam’s Point Road on Lady’s Island as a possible tornado due to Tropical Storm Debby.
Deputy Chief Will Vaigneur with the Lady’s Island/St. Helena Fire District said that he does not believe that the downed trees on Sam’s Point Road were the result of a tornado, but there was a report of a waterspout in the Port Royal Sound around 10:30 p.m. on Monday evening.
The Island News spoke with residents, who wished not to be named in the story, who live in the affected part of Sam’s Point Road who said that they did not see a tornado because they were sheltering in a closet. The residents said, however, they spoke with a storm tracker from Oklahoma who was outside of their home after the warning had passed who had claimed to have seen a tornado touch down, twist and go back up around 20 seconds later.
While there seems to be some debate about the presence of a tornado, large trees in front of several homes in the area of 490 Sam’s Point Road on Lady’s Island appear to have been snapped in half and knocked down and at least one home sustained damage.
Beyond that, all of the calls reported by local law enforcement, fire and rescue have been related to downed trees and power lines and flooded roads. There have been no reports of significant structural damage.
As of 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office was reporting flooding or potential to flood on Trask Parkway (U.S. 21) at Kean’s Neck Road, Trask Parkway in front of the Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, the entrance to Abberly Pointe Apartments and Castle Rock Road in Port Royal, Burton Wells Road at Middleton Recreation Drive and Kinlock Road.
Broad River Boulevard near Lamon Drive is blocked due to downed power lines and Paige Point Road has downed trees reported.
“We will see what happens today,” Vaigneur said on Tuesday morning.
As of 6 a.m. on Tuesday, Beaufort had received 8.56 inches of rain measured over a 24-hour period by the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network, but forecasters with the National Weather Service are predicting rain totals between 10 and 20 inches before the storm moves out of our area, with some areas expected to get as much as 30 inches.
Additionally, the Lowcountry is predicted to get storm surge of 2 to 4 feet from the storm that as of Tuesday morning is only moving around 7 mph.
On Monday, in preparation for Tropical Storm Debby, both Beaufort County and the City of Beaufort declared a State of Emergency in anticipation of the storm.
In the City of Beaufort, the State of Emergency due to Tropical Storm Debby is in effect from 2 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 5 through 11:59 p.m. on Thursday Aug. 8, unless Mayor Phil Cromer rescinds it sooner.
Beaufort County’s State of Emergency is in effect from 2 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 5 until August 11, unless rescinded sooner, according to a release.
On Sunday, Aug. 4, S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster declared a State of Emergency for South Carolina ahead of the storm.
According to a press release issued on Monday, Aug. 5, President Joe Biden has approved an Emergency Declaration for South Carolina and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) “is available to the state of South Carolina to supplement response efforts due to emergency conditions resulting for Hurricane Debby beginning Aug. 4, 2024, and continuing.”
A regional shelter opened in Jasper County at 4 p.m. on Monday at Ridgeland Elementary School – 250 Jaguar Trail, Ridgeland, S.C. – and the shelter is prepared for special needs and is pet friendly.
Beaufort County School District (BCSD) students were scheduled to start the 2024-2025 school year on Wednesday, Aug. 7, but as of Tuesday morning that start date has been moved back by at least a day due to the weather.
BCSD said in a statement that they plan to reassess on Wednesday in conjunction with the Emergency Management’s recommendations as to if schools will open on Thursday.
“Please know we don’t take the possibility of further postponing the start of school year lightly as to avoid students having to utilize make-up days during winter break, especially since e-learning is not an option this week as device distributing is still taking place,” the statement from Candace Bruder, the BCSD communications officer.
Hunting Island State Park is also closed on Tuesday for an undetermined amount of time due to the expected flooding from Tropical Storm Debby and the parks history of flooding and erosion issues.
Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island posted on Monday afternoon that they would not be evacuating due to the impending weather, but instead would shelter in place until the storm passed. As of Monday afternoon, there were no plans to cancel the weekly graduation ceremony on Friday, but they did cancel all Family Day activities on Wednesday and Thursday.
Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort directed all non-essential personnel to stay home on Tuesday and not travel unless necessary. Essential personnel were still expected to report as scheduled but were advised to be prepared for “severe weather conditions”.
On Monday night into Tuesday morning, Justin Michaels with The Weather Channel was reporting on Tropical Storm Debby from Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park in Downtown Beaufort.
Looking into the end of the week, Vice President Kamala Harris was scheduled to speak in Savannah on Friday, Aug. 9, but has canceled her event due to Tropical Storm Debby and the anticipated aftermath of the storm.
Tropical Storm Debby made landfall on Florida’s Big Bend as a Category 1 hurricane on Monday, Aug. 5 and has slowly moved its way across Florida moving northeast toward the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina.
Delayna Earley, who joined The Island News in 2022, formerly worked as a photojournalist for The Island Packet/The Beaufort Gazette, as well as newspapers in Indiana and Virginia. She can be reached at delayna.theislandnews@gmail.com.
