The Latest: Debby moves inland as the tropical storm soaks South Carolina

As Debby drenches South Carolina, heavy rainfall from the tropical storm is also expected to cause flooding across portions of the mid-Atlantic states and Northeast through Saturday morning. Meanwhile, residents as far away as the Great Lakes and New Jersey have also experienced heavy rains connected to the slow-moving tropical storm.

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North Carolina has increased the number of National Guard troops activated and added more rescue vehicles into the mix as rains from Tropical Storm Debby continue to drench the state.

The state “continues to face unrelenting rain and destruction from Tropical Storm Debby,” said Gov. Roy Cooper on Thursday at a National Guard armory in Kinston.

Some 374 guard members were ready to help respond with 131 vehicles, Cooper said.

One death has been reported in North Carolina after a home collapsed in a likely tornado in Wilson County in one of Debby’s storm bands. The overall death toll from Debby stands at seven.

It doesn’t look like North Carolina will suffer as badly as it did in massive floods from Hurricane Matthew and Hurricane Florence. The state has helped repair or rebuild 14,000 homes from that pair of billion-dollar disasters, Cooper said.

Authorities say a tornado death in North Carolina has raised Tropical Storm Debby’s death toll to seven.

The latest death was reported Thursday in Lucama, North Carolina.

Wilson County spokesman Stephen Mann confirmed the death in an email. No further details were immediately provided.

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

Interstate 95 in North Carolina has reopened after flooding shut down a part of one of the major highways along the East Coast on Thursday morning.

A portion of the highway around Fayetteville, North Carolina, was closed for about three hours after water topped the freeway, the North Carolina Highway Patrol said.

About 5 inches (13 centimeters) of rain fell in the area overnight.

An average of more than 50,000 vehicles a day pass through the stretch of I-95, the freeway that connects Florida to Maine.

A falling tree smashed the windshield of two deputies patrol cars overnight as they surveyed flooded roads in a North Carolina county.

Bladen County officials posted images overnight of flooded and cracked roads in the county and downed trees.

The sheriff’s office said in a Facebook post that a tree fell on a patrol car, cracking the windshield. The two deputies inside were not injured.

The county also issued a voluntary evacuation order for residents of Bladenboro, with a shelter open at West Bladen High School.

Elsewhere in the state, a part of Interstate 95 around Fayetteville, North Carolina, was shut down after water topped the freeway, the North Carolina Highway Patrol said. Troopers gave no indication of when the interstate could reopen.

In southeastern North Carolina, near the state line, as much as three feet of standing water was reported in Bladenboro.

That prompted authorities to shut down roads into the town.

“Bladenboro has been barricaded off from the rest of the county,” the National Weather Service said in a post on X. The weather service said a flash flood emergency had been declared for the county.

Elsewhere in the state, a part of Interstate 95 around Fayetteville, North Carolina, was shut down after water topped the freeway, the North Carolina Highway Patrol said. Troopers gave no indication of when the interstate could reopen.

Flooding closed one of the major highways along the East Coast on Thursday morning. A part of Interstate 95 around Fayetteville, North Carolina, was shut down after water topped the freeway, the North Carolina Highway Patrol said. Troopers gave no indication of when the interstate could reopen.

At least 4 inches (10 centimeters) of rain have fallen in the area since Debby first started crawling toward the region.

An average of more than 50,000 vehicles a day pass through the stretch of I-95, the freeway that connects Florida to Maine.

An apparent tornado spawned as Debby’s outer bands blew through North Carolina damaged at least four houses, a church and a school in Wilson County east of Raleigh, county officials said.

The county said in a statement the tornado touched down around 3 a.m. Thursday. No injuries were immediately reported.

The storm could bring more tornadoes as the day goes on in parts of North Carolina and Virginia, forecasters said.

Debby on Wednesday influenced thunderstorms from the East Coast to the Great Lakes. And the National Weather Service’s office in Charleston said survey teams earlier confirmed four-Debby related tornadoes.

Tropical Storm Debby is heading up the East Coast as it has made landfall for a second time. The National Hurricane Center says Debby came ashore early Thursday near Bulls Bay, South Carolina.

The storm is expected to keep moving inland, spreading heavy rain and possible flooding all the way up through the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast by the weekend. Debby first made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane early Monday on the Gulf Coast of Florida.

As Debby drenches South Carolina, heavy rainfall from the tropical storm is also expected to cause flooding across portions of the mid-Atlantic states and Northeast through Saturday morning.

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

More than 75 people have been rescued from floodwaters in the county, said Corey Kemp, the county’s director of emergency management. About 100 roads have been closed, he said.

“We’ve been faced with a lot of things we’ve never been faced with before,” 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.”

Gene Taylor was waiting for a few inches of water to drain back out of his home as high tide passed Wednesday afternoon at his home along French Quarter Creek, not far from the Cooper River in Huger and about 15 miles (24 kilometers) northeast of Charleston.

This is the fourth time his home's been flooded in the past nine years, and he heeded the warnings this time, moving things up or out.

“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. “We got caught with our pants down in 2015. We waited, didn’t think the water was going to come up as quick. But it did, and it caught us. We couldn’t even get the vehicles out.”

A few doors down, Charles Granger was cleaning up after about 8 inches (20 centimeters) of water got into his home — a common annoyance now.

“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.”

Water levels are rising as Tropical Storm Debby's rainfall drains out to sea. The National Weather Service in Charleston tweeted that the Canoochee River in Claxton, Georgia have neared 18 feet, surpassing previous flood record set in 1925.

No deaths or injuries have been reported from Tropical Story Debby in South Carolina, but Gov. Henry McMaster said Wednesday that the state was just entering Act 2 of a three-act play.

“We’ve been lucky so far. Things have not been as bad as they could have been,” McMaster said of heavy rains Monday and Tuesday that caused flooding that damaged over 60 homes but did not cause significant problems to roads or water systems.

Act 2 is 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 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 bans 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.