BY KIMBERLY CHANDLER AND CHRISTOPHER O’MEARA
Hurricane Debby has made landfall Monday in northern Florida as a Category 1 storm.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Debby has maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (129 kph). The storm made landfall in Steinhatchee, a tiny community of less than 1,000 residents in the Big Bend area of Florida’s Gulf Coast.
The storm made landfall in one of the least populated areas of Florida, but forecasters warned heavy rain could spawn catastrophic flooding in Florida, South Carolina and Georgia. The storm was moving northeast at 10 mph (17 kph), the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
Nearly 214,000 customers were without power in Florida on Monday morning, according to PowerOutage.com.
Debby is the fourth named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season.
The center of Hurricane Debby is expected to reach the Big Bend coast of Florida early Monday bringing potential record-setting rains, catastrophic flooding and life-threatening storm surge as it moves slowly across the northern part of the state before stalling over the coastal regions of Georgia and South Carolina.
Source: apnews.com