The forecast has the storm remaining well off the U.S. east coast but forecasters warned of life-threatening surf and rip currents. Hurricane warnings are posted on the island of Bermuda, where the effects of Ernesto will begin to be felt late Thursday with destructive winds and flooding forecast through the weekend.

Here’s the latest forecast path:

It is the season’s third hurricane, and forecasters are predicting that the storm could strengthen into a Category 3 hurricane by Friday. Ernesto’s peak wind speeds could reach 115 mph by Friday afternoon, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Ernesto was located about 570 miles south-southwest of Bermuda as of 11 a.m. Thursday with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph, moving north at 14 mph. Hurricane-force winds reach up to 60 miles from Ernesto’s center, while tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 175 miles.

A hurricane watch is in place for Bermuda, where the center of Ernesto is expected to pass on Saturday.

The National Hurricane Center on Thursday was predicting 4 to 8 inches of rain, with a maximum of 12 inches in localized areas.

AccuWeather meteorologists said in a statement Wednesday afternoon that wind gusts as high as 140 mph are forecast for Bermuda, up to 3 feet of storm surge.

“We could be dealing with a major hurricane approaching Bermuda this weekend,” said AccuWeather Chief On-Air Meteorologist Bernie Rayno in the statement. “Ernesto is forecast to track just west of Bermuda. That puts Bermuda in the right front quadrant of the hurricane, which is where we typically see the worst impacts from a storm.”

Ernesto, which became a tropical storm in the Atlantic on Monday, is expected to move at a slower speed as it continues heading north, or potentially northeast, on Friday and Saturday.

National Hurricane Center forecasters said Thursday Ernesto will generate swells that will reach the U.S. East Coast later this week and the weekend, despite being far offshore. A high risk of dangerous rip currents is expected.

“Beach goers should be aware of a significant risk of life-threatening surf and rip currents, and stay out of the water if advised by lifeguards,” the hurricane center said.

Ernesto dropped torrential rain on the eastern portion of Puerto Rico. Nearly half a million of 1.4 million customers remained in the dark more than a day after Ernesto swiped past Puerto Rico late Tuesday as a tropical storm before strengthening into a hurricane. Hundreds of thousands of people also are without water given the power outages.

Luma Energy, the company that operates transmission and distribution of power in Puerto Rico, said early Wednesday that its priority was to restore power to hospitals, the island’s water and sewer company and other essential services.

When pressed for an estimate of when power would be restored, Alejandro González, Luma’s operations director, declined to say.

“It would be irresponsible to provide an exact date,” he said at a news conference late Wednesday.

Puerto Rico’s power grid was razed by Hurricane Maria in September 2017 as a Category 4 storm, and it remains frail as crews continue to rebuild the system.

Not everyone can afford generators on the island of 3.2 million people with a more than 40% poverty rate.

“People already prepared themselves with candles,” said Lucía Rodríguez, a 31-year-old street vendor.

Hurricane season, which runs from June 1-Nov. 30, has entered the busiest time of the year from mid-August to October. The next named storm will be Francine.

Though July was quiet, experts at Colorado State said last week the remainder of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season should be “extremely active,” with the likelihood of 10 more hurricanes.

Colorado State’s department of atmospheric science’s final 2024 hurricane season forecast called for a “well-above-average” August through November, although it reduced its number of named storms from its July forecast, from 25 down to 23. The 1991 to 2020 average is 14.4.

The Colorado State team still expects 12 hurricanes (the 1991-2020 average was 7.2), and is forecasting that six of those will reach major hurricane strength (Category 3, 4 or 5). The 1991-2020 average is 3.2.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration echoed Colorado State’s prediction in its updated 2024 hurricane season forecast, calling for an “extremely active” remainder of the season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.

Heat index numbers will spike as high as 112 degrees F in eastern sections of Palm Beach County, while Broward County could see heat index temperatures as high as 109 degrees F.

High temperatures in the low 90s paired with relative humidity of 80% or higher equates to “feels like” temperatures that the weather service considers dangerous.

The weekend looks to be nearly as hot. Saturday will see similar numbers, with Sunday dropping slightly to the 105 to 109 range.

On Friday, there is a 48% to 53% chance of rain throughout most of Palm Beach and Broward counties. “Thunderstorms could become strong today,” the NWS said in a release. “Aside from lightning and heavy rainfall, these storms could produce wind gusts up to 50 mph.”

Weekend daytime weather should be mostly sunny with afternoon thunderstorms, and a mild south  breeze of 5 to 9 mph.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration echoed CSU’s prediction Thursday in their updated 2024 hurricane season forecast, calling for an “extremely active” remainder of the season, which runs from June 1 to November 30.

CSU said in their two-week forecast that there’s an 85% chance that the span of Aug. 6 to 19 will produce above-normal Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) in the Atlantic. The norm is based on hurricane activity in the Atlantic from 1966–2023.

“We are quite confident that the next two weeks will be characterized by activity at above-normal levels. … We believe that the next two weeks will be quite active for Atlantic hurricane activity,” forecasters said in their report.

Their prediction is based on several factors. Firstly, there’s already been activity: Tropical Storm Debby, which strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane just before making landfall in the Big Bend region of Florida, maxed out the normal ACE for the time span, so any storm that follows vaults the status to above normal.

There is currently a tropical disturbance moving west across the tropical Atlantic that has a 60% chance of developing in the next seven days as it heads toward the Caribbean.

In their larger seasonal outlook, CSU said 2024 has been marked by unusually warm sea-surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic. All that warm water can fuel storm formation. Additionally, the warm water tends to create lower atmospheric pressure and an unstable atmosphere, which also is favorable for storms.

A key force in inhibiting hurricane formation is wind shear. CSU analysis indicates that there will be very little, if any, wind shear in the coming weeks in the tropical Atlantic off Africa, where August storms usually form. “Vertical wind shear is generally forecast to be below normal (e.g., easterly anomalies) across the Atlantic Main Development Region for the next four weeks,” said the report.

That’s because a monthslong weather cycle called the Madden-Julian Oscillation is ramping up over the Indian Ocean. When it does, it reduces tropical Atlantic wind shear, and causes storminess over Africa, which can lead to storms over the Atlantic.

NOAA agrees

Additionally, NOAA updated their 2024 hurricane season forecast on Thursday, reiterating earlier outlooks by calling for a “highly active” remainder of the season.

“Atmospheric and oceanic conditions have set the stage for an extremely active hurricane season that could rank among the busiest on record,” said forecasters in a release.

The agency called for 17 to 24 named storms (the average is 14.4 between 1991 to 2020), 8-13 hurricanes (the average is 7.2) and 4 to 7 major hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin (the average is 3.2).

There have been four named storms thus far (Alberto, Beryl, Chris, Debby), leaving 20 more to go, if their worst-case prediction of 24 storms plays out.

NOAA called out similar atmospheric factors as CSU, but added that they expect the plums of dry Saharan dust, which travels off North Africa and over the Atlantic during summer, to dissipate. The dry air upon which the dust travels can halt hurricane formation.

The NOAA report also noted that in the coming months, La Niña is likely to kick in and reduce wind shear, thus enhancing hurricane formation.

HUGER, S.C. (AP) — Tropical Storm Debby is expected to return to land over an already soggy South Carolina coast early Thursday before picking up speed and moving north.

Considerable flooding is expected across parts of eastern South Carolina and southeast North Carolina through Friday, according to the National Hurricane Center. Parts of eastern South Carolina have already seen 25 inches (64 centimeters) of rain, while parts of southeast North Carolina have recorded 15 inches (38 centimeters).

Debby, which first made landfall in Florida early Monday and has moved slowly ever since, will speed up as it heads to the north and north-northeast across the Carolinas and Mid-Atlantic states later Thursday and on Friday.

Heavy rainfall is also expected to cause flooding across portions of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast through Saturday morning.

Days of rain have forced the deluge-hardened residents of a South Carolina community to begin the near-ritualistic task of assessing damage left behind by Debby, which continued spinning over the Atlantic Ocean and influencing thunderstorms from the East Coast to the Great Lakes on Wednesday. The National Weather Service’s office in Charleston also said survey teams confirmed four-Debby related tornadoes.

In Huger, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) northeast of Charleston, Gene Taylor was waiting in the afternoon for a few inches of water to drain from his house along French Quarter Creek as high tide passed.

Taylor saw the potential for flooding last week and started moving belongings out or up higher in his home. It’s a lesson learned the hard way — Taylor estimated that this is the fourth time he has had floodwater in his home in the past nine years.

“To save everything, we’ve learned from the past it’s better be prepared for the worst. And unfortunately, I think we got it,” Taylor said.

A few doors down, Charles Grainger was cleaning up after about 8 inches (20 centimeters) of water got into his home.

“Eight inches disrupts your whole life,” Grainger said. “You don’t get used to it. You just grin and bear it. It’s part of living on the creek.”

In Georgia, at least four dams were breached northwest of Savannah in Bulloch County, but no deaths had been reported, authorities said at a briefing.

More than 75 people were rescued from floodwaters in the county, said Corey Kemp, director of emergency management, and about 100 roads were closed.

“We’ve been faced with a lot of things we’ve never been faced with before,” Bulloch County Commission Chairman Roy Thompson said. “I’m 78-plus years old and have never seen anything like this before in Bulloch County. It’s amazing what has happened, and amazing what is going to continue to happen until all these waters get out of here.”

For residents on Tappan Zee Drive in suburban Pooler, west of Savannah, Georgia, the drenching that Debby delivered came with a painful dose of déjà vu. In October 2016, Hurricane Matthew overflowed a nearby canal and flooded several of the same homes.

Located roughly 30 miles (50 kilometers) inland from the Atlantic Ocean, with no creeks or rivers nearby, the neighborhood doesn’t seem like a high-risk location for tropical flooding. But residents say drainage problems have plagued their street for well over a decade, despite local government efforts to fix them.

Debby also dumped rain on communities all the way up to the Great Lakes and New York and New Jersey. Moisture from the tropical storm strengthened another system Tuesday evening, which caused strong thunderstorms, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Scott Kleebauer.

“We had a multi-round period of showers and thunderstorms that kind of scooted from Michigan eastward,” Kleebauer said.

As much as 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain fell in parts of New Jersey in less than four hours.

Emergency officials in New York City warned of potential flash flooding, flying drones with loudspeakers in some neighborhoods to tell people in basement apartments to be ready to flee at a moment’s notice. Multiple water rescues were reported in and near the city.

Nearly 330,000 customers remained without power in Ohio as of Wednesday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.us, following severe storms including two confirmed tornadoes. Utility officials with FirstEnergy’s Illuminating Company said via social media that power restoration would take days due to the damage.

In South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster said his state was just entering Act 2 of a three-act play, after more than 60 homes were damaged but roads and water systems were without significant problems.

The final act may come next week if enough rain falls upstream in North Carolina to cause major flooding along rivers as they flow to the Atlantic Ocean.

The center of Debby was over the Atlantic on Wednesday night, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) east-northeast of Charleston, the National Hurricane Center said.

A state of emergency was in effect for both North Carolina and Virginia. Maryland issued a state of preparedness declaration that coordinates preparations without declaring an emergency.

At least six people have died due to the storm, five of them in traffic accidents or from fallen trees. The sixth death involved a 48-year-old man in Gulfport, Florida, whose body was recovered after his anchored sailboat partially sank.

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Collins reported from Columbia, South Carolina. Associated Press journalists Russ Bynum in Pooler, Georgia; Bruce Shipkowski in Toms River, New Jersey; Jeff Martin in Atlanta, and Lisa Baumann in Bellingham, Washington, contributed.

HUGER, S.C. (AP) — Days of rain forced the deluge-hardened residents of a South Carolina community to begin the near-ritualistic task of assessing damage left behind by Tropical Storm Debby, which continued spinning over the Atlantic Ocean and influencing thunderstorms from the East Coast to the Great Lakes on Wednesday.

In Huger, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) northeast of Charleston, Gene Taylor was waiting in the afternoon for a few inches of water to drain from his house along French Quarter Creek as high tide passed.

Taylor saw the potential for flooding last week and started moving belongings out or up higher in his home. It’s a lesson learned the hard way — Taylor estimated that this is the fourth time he has had floodwater in his home in the past nine years.

“To save everything, we’ve learned from the past it’s better be prepared for the worst. And unfortunately, I think we got it,” Taylor said.

A few doors down, Charles Grainger was cleaning up after about 8 inches (20 centimeters) of water got into his home.

“Eight inches disrupts your whole life,” Grainger said. “You don’t get used to it. You just grin and bear it. It’s part of living on the creek.”

The National Hurricane Center warned that isolated areas could see up to 25 inches (64 centimeters) of rain from Debby.

In Georgia, at least four dams were breached northwest of Savannah in Bulloch County, but no fatalities have been reported so far, authorities said at a briefing.

More than 75 people were rescued from floodwaters in the county, said Corey Kemp, director of emergency management, and about 100 roads were closed.

“We’ve been faced with a lot of things we’ve never been faced with before,” Bulloch County Commission Chairman Roy Thompson said. “I’m 78-plus years old and have never seen anything like this before in Bulloch County. It’s amazing what has happened, and amazing what is going to continue to happen until all these waters get out of here.”

For residents on Tappan Zee Drive in suburban Pooler, west of Savannah, Georgia, the drenching that Debby delivered came with a painful dose of déjà vu. In October 2016, Hurricane Matthew overflowed a nearby canal and flooded several of the same homes.

Located roughly 30 miles (50 kilometers) inland from the Atlantic Ocean, with no creeks or rivers nearby, the neighborhood doesn’t seem like a high-risk location for tropical flooding. But residents say drainage problems have plagued their street for well over a decade, despite local government efforts to fix them.

Debby also dumpred rain on communities all the way up to the Great Lakes and New York and New Jersey. Moisture from the tropical storm strengthened another system Tuesday evening, which caused strong thunderstorms, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Scott Kleebauer.

“We had a multi-round period of showers and thunderstorms that kind of scooted from Michigan eastward,” Kleebauer said.

As much as 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain fell in parts of New Jersey in less than four hours.

Emergency officials in New York City warned of potential flash flooding, flying drones with loudspeakers in some neighborhoods to tell people in basement apartments to be ready to flee at a moment’s notice. Multiple water rescues were reported in and near the city.

Nearly 330,000 customers remained without power in Ohio as of Wednesday afternoon following severe storms there, according to PowerOutage.us. Utility officials with FirstEnergy’s Illuminating Company said via social media that power restoration would take days due to the damage.

In South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster said his state was just entering Act 2 of a three-act play, after more than 60 homes were damaged but roads and water systems were without significant problems.

“We’ve been lucky so far. Things have not been as bad as they could have been,” McMaster said.

Act 2 was to arrive overnight into Thursday when Debby moves back onshore and heavy rain returns, this time to the northern part of the coast and inland. An additional 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) of rain could fall, said John Quagliariello, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Columbia.

“It may not be as catastrophic as what we were saying, but we still think as these rain bands develop they could sit over the same area for long periods of time, produce a lot of rainfall and a lot of flooding,” Quagliariello said.

The final act may come next week if enough rain falls upstream in North Carolina to cause major flooding along rivers as it flows to the Atlantic Ocean.

The center of Debby was over the Atlantic on Wednesday evening, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) east-southeast of Charleston, the National Hurricane Center said. The storm first made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane early Monday along Florida’s Gulf Coast.

A state of emergency was in effect for both North Carolina and Virginia. Maryland issued a state of preparedness declaration that coordinates preparations without declaring an emergency.

At least six people have died due to the storm, five of them in traffic accidents or from fallen trees. The sixth death involved a 48-year-old man in Gulfport, Florida, whose body was recovered after his anchored sailboat partially sank.

In Charleston, South Carolina, the Brown Dog Deli closed early Monday and couldn’t open Tuesday due to a curfew decreed by local officials. On Wednesday the lunch crowd poured in after days of storm preparations and hunkering down. The first words from the person answering the phone were: “Yes, we’re open.”

“We’ve got a lot of locals walking in after being cooped up for two days looking for a good meal,” kitchen manager Liz Denney said.

Some water got around the sandbags that employees placed Monday, but the restaurant has had worse flooding other times in the past year, Denney said. The standing water and the occasional interruption, she added, is just part of living on the coast.

“It comes with the territory,” Denney said.

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Collins reported from Columbia, South Carolina. Associated Press journalists Russ Bynum in Pooler, Georgia; Bruce Shipkowski in Toms River, New Jersey; and Jeff Martin in Atlanta contributed.

The department of atmospheric science there has released its final 2024 hurricane season forecast for the year, calling for a “well-above-average” August through November.

One bright note is that it actually reduced its number of named storms from its July forecast, from 25 down to 23. The 1991 to 2020 average is 14.4.

The Colorado State team still expects 12 hurricanes (the 1991-2020 average was 7.2), and is forecasting that six of those will reach major hurricane strength (Category 3, 4 or 5). The 1991-2020 average is 3.2.

This season’s previous storms, Hurricanes Beryl and Debby, as well as Tropical Storms Alberto and Chris, are included in the numbers. That means the team is calling for 10 more hurricanes between August and Nov. 30, when hurricane season ends.

Forecasters predicted that 2024 will have about 190% of the average hurricane activity from 1991–2020. Last year had about 120%.

The most impactful Atlantic basin hurricane of 2023 was Idalia, which made landfall as a Category 3 storm on Aug. 30, in the Big Bend region of Florida, causing eight fatalities.

The Colorado State team said it has higher-than-normal confidence that this season will be extremely busy. Several factors play a role.

2024 has been marked by unusually warm sea-surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic. All that warm water can fuel storm formation. Additionally, the warm water tends to create lower atmospheric pressure and an unstable atmosphere, which also is favorable for storms.

Wind shear, which can topple hurricanes, has been below normal in June and July, which usually indicates low shear in the peak of the season from August to October.

The El Niño, which can ramp up wind shear in the Atlantic Basin, has faded, and a potential La Niña could kick in in the coming month. That would likely weaken wind shear even more, and favor storm intensification.

Learning from history

So far, 2024’s ocean and atmosphere conditions look a lot like those of past active seasons, such as 1933, 1995, 2005, 2010 and 2020, said Phil Klotzbach, senior research scientist in the department of atmospheric science at CSU and lead author of the report.

The report also predicted that for the remainder of the season, the east coast of the U.S., including the Florida peninsula, has a 30% chance of a major hurricane making landfall. The full season average from 1880–2020 is 21%.

The Gulf Coast from the Florida panhandle westward to Brownsville has a 38% chance of a major hurricane making landfall. The full season average for that region from 1880–2020 is 27%.

Debby, which made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane with sustained winds of at least 74 mph, blew 25 packages of cocaine onto a beach on the Florida Keys, according to Samuel Briggs II, the acting chief patrol agent for the U.S. Border Patrol in Miami. The drugs were discovered by a “good Samaritan,” who alerted authorities, Briggs said in a social media post. The U.S. Border Patrol seized the drugs, he said.

The cocaine blocks, which weighed about 70 pounds total, appeared to be wrapped in plastic and marked with a red and black symbol, according to photos shared by Briggs. Their street value, he added, was over $1 million. It was unclear whether they had washed up on shore in the water or been blown there by the wind.

The narcotics appeared in Islamorada, a village in Monroe County, according to Jeffrey Quiñones, a spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The drugs were taken into the agency’s custody, Quiñones said in an email on Tuesday. He declined to provide further details.

Drug packages have appeared Florida’s shores before. In 2019, a police department in Cocoa Beach warned the public to be cautious after a duffel bag stuffed with 15 kilograms (about 33 pounds) of powdered cocaine washed up during Hurricane Dorian, according to Florida Today. Soon after, another kilogram of cocaine was found on a beach in Melbourne. And in 1996, dozens of cocaine packages that had been dropped or dumped by smugglers also swept ashore on two beaches.

Bad weather may have also driven cocaine to wash up in Australia, after residents in New South Wales began reporting finding bricks and barrels of the drug along a 60 mile stretch of coastline. Australian police eventually accused a Queensland man of trying to smuggle 1,980 pounds of cocaine into the country. Adverse weather conditions may have partly hindered smugglers from retrieving the drugs, authorities said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Tropical Storm Debby drenched coastal cities in Georgia and South Carolina, stirred up tornadoes and submerged streets with waist-high floodwaters Tuesday, just the beginning of a prolonged storm that could dump staggering rain totals of up to 25 inches (64 centimeters).

Charleston and Savannah, Georgia, took the first blow, with up to a foot (30 centimeters) of rain falling along the coast between the two cities in just over 24 hours. Police blocked all roads into Charleston’s downtown peninsula to everyone but essential workers and emergency personnel. Dozens of roads were closed in the historic city because of flooding similar to what it sees several times a year because of rising sea levels.

As Debby swirls just offshore, the heavy rain is expected to move north into parts of South and North Carolina that have already seen two billion-dollar floods in eight years.

In one Savannah neighborhood, firefighters used boats to evacuate some residents and waded through floodwaters to deliver bottled water and other supplies to those who refused to leave.

Michael Jones said water gushed into his home Monday evening, overturning the refrigerator and causing furniture to float. Outside, the water seemed to be everywhere and was too deep to flee safely. So Jones spent a sleepless night on his kitchen table before firefighters going door to door came in a boat Tuesday morning.

“It was hell all night,” Jones said, adding, “It was a struggle, but God is good.”

In Charleston, Mayor William Cogswell said the road closures have kept businesses and homes from unnecessary damage and avoided the need for any high-water rescues.

“We especially don’t need any yahoos driving through the water and causing damage to properties,” Cogswell said.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said Debby has not been as bad as feared so far, but he warned that the slow-moving storm was far from over.

It will be a nervous few days for northern South Carolina and southern North Carolina, where forecasters warned of up to 15 inches (38 centimeters) of rain. Those totals are close to what the region saw in a historic flood from Hurricane Matthew in 2016. Then two years later, many of those records were broken during Hurricane Florence. Both storms killed dozens.

North Carolina and Virginia have both declared a state of emergency.

“The effects of Debby are far-reaching, and our neighboring states are facing significant challenges,” Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said.

Several areas along North Carolina’s coastline are prone to flooding, such as Wilmington and the Outer Banks. Virginia could see impacts including strong winds, heavy rains and flooding.

Debby’s center was about 30 miles (50 kilometers southeast of Savanah on Tuesday night, according to a bulletin from the National Hurricane Center. It had maximum sustained winds of 40 mph (65 kph) and was heading east-northeast at 3 mph (6 kph).

The storm was forecast to slowly move out to sea, then creep back onshore over South Carolina on Thursday morning.

“Tropical cyclones always produce heavy rain, but normally as they’re moving, you know, it doesn’t accumulate that much in one place,” said Richard Pasch, of the hurricane center. “But when they move very slowly, that’s the worst situation.”

There will be lulls in the rain as dry spells appear between bands around the center of the poorly organized storm, forecasters said. But some bands will be heavy and keep moving over the same places.

Green Pond in rural Colleton County, South Carolina, reported the most rain so far, just over 14 inches (36 centimeters). A nearby dam had water run over its top but did not crumble, while trees and washouts blocked a number of roads, county Fire-Rescue Assistant Chief David Greene said.

Close to a foot (30 centimeters) fell down coast from Charleston to Savannah, where the National Weather Service reported 6.68 inches (17 centimeters) just on Monday. That’s already a month’s worth in a single day: In all of August 2023, the city got 5.56 inches (14.1 centimeters).

Tornadoes knocked down trees and damaged a few homes on Kiawah Island and Edisto Island. A Walmart, an Arby’s and other businesses were damaged and several vehicles flipped in Moncks Corner, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) inland from Charleston.

As the heavy rain shifted up the coast Tuesday, Crooked Hammock Brewery in North Myrtle Beach decided to close early.

“Flash flooding is super unpredictable, and we’d rather our staff and guests be home and safe,” marketing coordinator Georgena Dimitriadis said.

Far to the north in New York City, heavy storms that meteorologists said were being enhanced by Debby flooded some streets and expressways, stranding motorists. The National Weather Service issued a flood watch until noon Wednesday for the entire city.

Emergency officials warned of potential flash flooding, flying drones with loudspeakers in some neighborhoods to tell people in basement apartments to be ready to flee at a moment’s notice.

Debby made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane early Monday along the Gulf Coast of Florida.

At least six people have died due to the storm, five of them in traffic accidents or from fallen trees. The sixth death involved a 48-year-old man in Gulfport, Florida, who was on his anchored sailboat and whose body was recovered after a person saw the vessel had partially sunk, WTSP-TV reported.

About 500 people were rescued Monday from flooded homes in Sarasota, Florida, police said. Just north of Sarasota, Manatee County officials said more than 200 people were rescued.

Officials said it may take two weeks to fully assess the damage in parts of north central Florida as they wait for rivers to crest.

“You’re going to see the tributaries rise. That’s just inevitable. How much? We’ll see,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday. “It may be that it’s not flooded today and it could be flooded tomorrow.”

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp also warned of more rain and flooding to come, saying, “Do not let this storm lull you to sleep.”

More than 155,000 customers remained without power in Florida and Georgia on Tuesday morning, down from more than 350,000, according to PowerOutage.us and Georgia Electric Membership Corp. More than 20,000 others were without power in South Carolina early Tuesday.

President Joe Biden approved emergency declarations making federal disaster assistance available to Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.

Debby is finally forecast to pick up speed Thursday, and it could move up the middle of North Carolina, through Virginia and into the Washington area by Saturday.

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Collins reported from Columbia, South Carolina. Contributors include Jeff Martin and Sudhin Thanawala in Atlanta; Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Kate Payne in Tallahassee, Florida; and Ben Finley in Norfolk, Virginia; and freelance photographer Stephen B. Morton in Savannah, Georgia.