Debby not done: After skirting Tallahassee and soaking the coast, storm sits and spins
Hurricane Debby wobbled onshore Monday and virtually parked itself over the eastern Big Bend, after raking the Florida peninsula, soaking some places with a foot or more of rain and knocking out power to more than 300,000 customers.
The Category 1 hurricane made landfall around 7 a.m. near Steinhatchee, a small fishing hamlet in southern Taylor County only 10 miles from where Hurricane Idalia, a Category 3 storm, hit nearly a year ago.
Unlike Idalia, which packed devastating 125-mph winds, Debby appeared to have been more of a rainmaker, coming to a near halt by noon Monday as it continued to feed off an inflow of Gulf moisture and dump rain on North Florida.
“Right now in the Steinhatchee area, the water is severely high and it is still continuing to rise,” said Gina Deeson, a spokeswoman for Taylor County Emergency Management. “We don’t have any roads that are impassible. However, we are anticipating ... flooding as this water continues to rise.”
Debby was blamed for the deaths of four people. Two Crawfordville residents, a 38-year old woman and a 12-year-old boy, were killed in a traffic crash Sunday night in Dixie County, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. A truck driver in Hillsborough County died after his truck veered into a canal, and a 13-year-old boy was killed after a tree fell on his mobile home.
"Sheriff (Bobby) McCallum has responded to the scene personally, and is with the family," The Levy County Sheriff's Office wrote in a Facebook post. "Our thoughts and prayers are with this family as they deal with this tragedy."
Among the hardest hit areas were Taylor County, which saw between 8 and 12 inches of rain, and Madison and Lafayette counties, which saw between 6 to 10 inches of rain. Those totals were expected to increase over the day as Debby made an agonizingly slow exit into South Georgia.
The Taylor County Sheriff’s Office asked people to stay off the roads because of the large number of downed trees and power lines.
“Please don’t put yourself at risk,” the Sheriff’s Office said.
The storm made a ghost town of Perry as residents hunkered down and businesses closed. Spyridon Aibejeris rode the storm out in the same Perry hotel where he waited out Idalia, which made landfall Aug. 30, 2023, near Keaton Beach. He said said repairs on his house in Keaton Beach were finished just two weeks ago.
“Man, I’ve done this so many times,” he said. “You just go back and see what you’ve got to do. I hope I don’t have to go back to that again.”
Kristian Oliver, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Tallahassee, said that after making landfall, Debby got stuck between two high pressure systems, which kept the rain falling for hours over North Florida.
“It’s just pulling in moisture from the Gulf, which just keeps forming more rain,” Oliver said. “That’s what makes it relatively unusual, because the steering patterns don’t usually break down like this to where it comes to a halt.”
Debby packed plenty of bluster, with wind gusts of 70 mph measured in the small town of Mayo and a 65 mph gust in Madison County. At the coast, winds gusted to 54 mph at Alligator Point, 50 mph at St. Marks Lighthouse and 66 mph at Cedar Key.
The city of Tallahassee, which saw only a 44 mph gust at the airport, said in an update around 11 a.m. that about 12,600 electric customers were without power and that it had restored service to 10,500 customers.
“Mutual aid resources from Alabama are working with city crews,” the city said on X. “Additional mutual aid resources from Louisiana are arriving to begin work soon.”
In Leon County, only about 9% of the county was without power as of 9 a.m., according to Florida Public Service Commission reports.
However, the percentage of customers without electric service was much higher to the east, with 94% of customers down in Taylor County, 87% in Jefferson County, 80% in Suwanee County and 78% in Lafayette County.
In Tallahassee, much of the city was shuttered Monday morning. Leon County Schools, Florida State and Florida A&M universities and state offices remained closed for the day. The weather remained cooperative enough for first responders and repair crews to remain in the field.
“Our ambulances and our Public Works crews are still responding to every call for service and every downed tree,” said Matt Cavell, director of Community Relations and Resilience.
Nearly 100 people rode out the storm in one of six shelters that opened at Leon County schools, the district said in an X post. Superintendent Rocky Hanna said all of the evacuees will be moved to a single overnight shelter at SAIL High School. Hanna added that there were no immediate signs of damage to school facilities.
“Our schools appear to be doing good,” he said. “We are sending out teams to check them out further.”
Mickey West, a homeless Marine Corps veteran, lives in a tent in the Wakulla Forest off of Woodville Highway. He decided to catch the Star Metro bus and shelter at SAIL High School through Hurricane Debby.
West has been homeless for years and after sitting through the May 10 tornadoes that lifted his tent 10 feet above the ground while he was still inside, he decided he would rather be safe than sorry this time around.
“I just didn’t want to be there. When I go back I’ll salvage what’s there,” West told the Tallahassee Democrat outside of the high school’s gymnasium where he sheltered with a few bags of valuables. “I wasn’t going to try this but I just didn’t want to test it.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis gave an update during a morning news briefing with Kevin Guthrie, head of the state’s Division of Emergency Management. They warned that flooding will be an ongoing issue, lasting for up to five to 10 days.
The weather service in Jacksonville issued a flash flood warning at 12:21 p.m. for parts of four counties in North Florida, saying between 7 and 14 inches of rain had already fallen on Columbia, Suwannee, Hamilton and Gilchrist counties. Another 3 to 6 inches of rain are possible.
“This storm is massive," Guthrie said. Later, he added, “We are not running anywhere. We are staying put, and we're going to make sure that we're here to respond.”
Contact Jeff Burlew at jburlew@tallahassee.com or 850-599-2180.