Orlando, Florida – Hurricane Debby made landfall in the Big Bend region of Florida as a Category 1 storm and has begun its slow movement toward the Atlantic Ocean. The hurricane struck land on Monday morning at 7 a.m. local time (11:00 GMT) near Steinhatchee, Florida, approximately 115 kilometers southeast of Tallahassee, with wind gusts reaching up to 130 km/h.
Governor Ron DeSantis warned reporters about the significant threat of “substantial flooding events” in the coming days, stating, “We have seen considerable storm surge. We have experienced flooding, and we will continue to see flooding in various parts of Florida.”
According to Kevin Guthrie, Executive Director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, Debby has already dropped up to 30 cm (approximately 11.8 inches) of rain in some areas of southwest Florida. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) has issued warnings that Debby is expected to bring between 15 and 30 cm (about 5.9 to 11.8 inches) of rain to parts of Florida and as much as 51 to 76 cm (20 to 30 inches) in coastal areas of Georgia and South Carolina before the week is over.
Mandatory evacuations have been initiated in parts of Citrus County, Florida, while eight other counties have issued voluntary evacuation orders, according to local media reports. Governors of Georgia and South Carolina have also declared states of emergency ahead of the storm’s approach.
“This will be an event that will likely be here for the next five to seven days, perhaps as long as 10 days, depending on how much rain we get,” Guthrie added.
Currently, over 300,000 customers are without power, according to power outage tracking service poweroutage.us. “We have many restoration crews ready to restore power,” DeSantis said.
Debby was a slow-moving tropical storm as it passed over Cuba but gained strength from the unusually warm waters while paralleling the Florida Gulf Coast. Debby shares some characteristics with Hurricane Harvey, which hit Corpus Christi, Texas, in August 2017. Harvey was downgraded to a tropical storm as it moved inland but stalled over Texas, dropping around 127 cm (50 inches) of rain over Houston and causing damages estimated at approximately $125 billion.
Climate scientists believe that human-caused global warming from fossil fuel combustion has raised ocean temperatures, making storms larger and more destructive. The last hurricane to directly impact the Big Bend region was Hurricane Idalia, which briefly reached Category 4 strength before making landfall as a Category 3 storm in August 2023. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimated that Idalia caused $3.5 billion in damages. DeSantis described the initial impacts of Debby as “moderate” in comparison to Idalia.
Weather forecasts anticipate numerous Atlantic hurricanes for the 2024 season, which began on June 1, including four to seven major storms. This is expected to exceed the record-breaking 2005 season that produced the devastating hurricanes Katrina and Rita.