Tropical Storm Debby belly crawled through Coffee County Monday night. And while she didn’t leave the area unscathed she also didn’t unleash her full fury on the community during her stay here. Debby has been moving slowly across northwest Florida/southeastern Georgia – a trait she still exhibited Tuesday – and as a result, she saturated the counties in her path with historic amounts of rain. Wind damage, at least for southeastern Georgia was, thankfully, kept to a minimum.
At Tuesday morning’s community briefing at the county EMA office, EMA director Steve Carver stated that Debby’s impact was less significant than originally expected. He reported that there were a number of trees down and lots of people were still without power. “Those are relatively minor. Power crews have been working all night and they’re still working now. They’ll get everyone’s power on and the trees will get cleaned up,” he said.
Forecasters called for six to 12 inches of rain for Coffee County. Carver reported that a safe estimate for the amount of rainfall Coffee received was five to seven inches. Some places received more, some less. However, rain will still fall intermittently through Friday so the water will continue to accumulate.
Even though there were no reports of widespread catastrophic damage, some property owners did experience some significant events. For example, a large tree fell on the home at 707 North Gaskin Avenue, taking out the northeast corner of the home, the back porch, and a shed in the back yard. The tree, a large pine, uprooted and fell in a southwesterly direction.
At the meeting, attendees gave the community’s response to the storm positive feedback. “Everyone came together and did what needed to be done. The shelter is always complicated, maybe the most complicated part. We appreciate the Red Cross for what they did,” said City Manager Charlie Davis. The shelter opened at 3 p.m. Monday; three people came in and sought refuge from the storm. There was room for 75.
“I’m thankful that we all came together. We developed a consistent message and sent it out. There were no contradictions,” he said.
Though Coffee County escaped most of the brunt of Debby’s destruction, other areas weren’t so lucky. Some Florida communities have received as much as 20 inches of rain. Five deaths in Georgia and Florida are being attributed to the storm as well. Currently, Debby is headed toward the Georgia coast, with the Savannah and Charleston, SC, areas in her path.