Hurricane Debby made landfall along Florida’s Gulf coast early Monday as Category 1 storm, with forecasters warning of life-threatening storm surges, historic levels of rainfall and catastrophic flooding
The U.S. National Hurricane Center, NHC, said the storm came ashore near the small community of Steinhatchee and had maximum sustained winds of 129 kilometers per hour.
After impacting Florida, the storm is expected to linger in the region, moving slowly to the north while dumping massive amounts of rain on Florida, Georgia and South Carolina in the coming days.
Rainfall amounts of 15-30 centimeters are expected in Florida, and 25-50 centimeters in Georgia and South Carolina. The governors of all three have already declared a state of emergency to help speed relief efforts.
“So, it’s going to be wet. We’re going to have a lot of inundation that is going to present hazards and it’s going to present challenges, but we will respond appropriately, and we have everything staged, that we wanted to have staged,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said at a Sunday briefing.
Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters
