Debby finally left the US on Saturday after the storm passed best part of a week unleashing tornadoes and flooding, damaging homes and claiming lives as it moved up the East Coast after making landfall in Florida as a hurricane.
Debby’s last day over the US before arriving in Canada flooded south-central New York and north-central Pennsylvania with rain, prompting evacuations and helicopter rescues. The post-tropical cyclone continued to rain in New England and southern Quebec, Canada, on Friday night, with conditions expected to improve on Saturday morning as the system continued to move northeast.
Some of the worst flash flooding in New York on Friday occurred in towns and villages in a largely rural area south of the Finger Lakes.
In Steuben County, which borders Pennsylvania, authorities ordered the evacuation of the towns of Jasper, Woodhull and part of Addison, and said people were stranded as floodwaters made several roads impassable. In the middle of the night, some of these orders were lifted as the threat of serious flooding passed. The recovery effort was underway Saturday morning as emergency crews removed debris and helped residents pump flood water from their basements.
In the village of Woodhull, a rain-swollen stream overran a bridge. Area resident Stephanie Waters said parts of sheds, branches and uprooted trees were among the debris that hit the gap.
“Hearing the trees hitting the bridge was scary,” she said.
Fire Chief Timothy Martin said everyone in town was safe, but “every business in Woodhull was damaged.”
John Anderson said he saw floodwaters rise quickly, overwhelming some vehicles in Canisteo in Steuben County and nearby Andover in Allegany County.
“It’s been very violent,” said Anderson, who provided dispatches to The Wellsville Sun. He said he saw people’s belongings washed away by the turbulent water.
In Canisteo, farm owners Deb and Cliff Moss suffered severe damage to their dairy farm, which has been in existence for more than five decades. A neighbor’s double trailer floated across a field into a river during the flood, said his daughter, Stacey Urban.
Urban said the catastrophic damage to the community was difficult to comprehend.
“They lost a lot. Beyond moving,” Urban said.
Ann Farkas, who also lives in Canisteo, said it was the first time her home, one of the oldest in the county, had flooded since she moved there in 1976.
“The water is receding and what’s left is very thick mud – it’s like wet concrete –,” Farkas said.
“Like a lot of people, I don’t have flood insurance, so I doubt my landlord will cover any of this,” she said.
Steuben County Manager Jack Wheeler said the storm was hitting some of the same areas as Tropical Storm Fred three years earlier and that half a dozen rapid water rescue teams rescued people trapped in vehicles and homes.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro declared a state of emergency.
Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency Director Randy Padfield said a National Guard helicopter with water rescue capabilities was sent to Tioga County, which borders New York, due to severe flooding in the region. Padfield said Tioga authorities called for help at eight to 10 rescue sites, and boat rescues were also performed.
In Potter County, also on the New York border, the storm destroyed bridges and severely damaged Route 49, Commissioner Bob Rossman said.
“My understanding is the road is pretty much destroyed,” Rossman said. “This will be a very expensive replacement. It is one of the main roads in the municipality.”
He said one firefighter suffered water-related injuries, but Rossman did not know the extent.
More than 150,000 homes and businesses in New York and Pennsylvania were without power on Friday, according to PowerOutage.us, with about 60,000 still in the dark as of Saturday morning. In Ohio, more than 113,000 customers were still without power.
In Ohio, nearly 144,000 customers were still waiting for power to return Friday night after Debby-related storms, including tornadoes, ripped through the northeast part of the state on Wednesday.
PPL reported 9,139 customers without power in Pennsylvania, while First Energy reported 4,760 outages in the commonwealth.
Meanwhile, First Energy also reported 110,270 customers without power in Ohio — nearly 80,000 in Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, and more than 16,000 in neighboring Lake County.
Debbie was downgraded to a tropical depression late Thursday afternoon and was a post-tropical cyclone on Friday, the National Hurricane Center said. Arrived on the mainland early monday on the Gulf Coast of Florida as a Category 1 hurricane, it emerged over the Atlantic Ocean and made landfall for a second time Thursday morning in South Carolina as a tropical storm.
There have been at least nine deaths linked to Debby, most in vehicle accidents or from falling trees.
In Vermont, more than 44,000 homes and businesses were without power Friday night, but that number dropped to about 23,000 by late Saturday morning.
Officials said wind gusts of more than 60 mph in some areas toppled massive trees in places where the ground remained saturated from previous storms.
“There is widespread and extensive damage in many locations,” said Mike Burke, vice president of operations for Green Mountain Power. “The repeated storms we are experiencing in Vermont are not only painful, they are happening more frequently and causing more damage like this.”
Governor Phil Scott warned that Debby’s remains could cause serious damage, including to already soaked places who were hit by flash floods twice last month, but a flood warning was canceled in the middle of the night.
Rick Dente, owner of Dente’s Market in Barre, Vermont, worked to protect his business with plastic and sandbags as rain fell Friday. “There’s not much more you can do,” he said.
Jaqi Kincaid, hit by floods last month in Lyndon, Vermont, said the previous storm destroyed their garage and well, so they have no water. He also toppled a 120-foot tree and tore down a fence.
“We’re doing this a lot,” Kincaid said, clasping his hands together as if in prayer.
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Associated Press journalists Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo, New York; Lisa Rathke in Barre, Vermont; Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina; and Susan Haigh in Norwich, Connecticut, contributed to this report.
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