Toll across NC from Tropical Storm Debby coming into focus

North Carolina has confirmed four storm-related fatalities from Tropical Storm Debby , Justin Graney , the communications chief for North Carolina Emergency Management told Carolina Public Press on Monday morning.

The deaths resulted from a tornado in Wilson County, a falling tree in Rockingham County, a motor vehicle collision in Wake County and a motor vehicle being swept from the roadway in floodwaters in Robeson County.

Damage assessments are ongoing in some counties, while others cannot begin to assess the impacts because the flooding is still ongoing. The extent of state and federal assistance for recovery efforts will be dependent on those assessments.

“It will take some time before the financial impacts and assistance picture is clear,” Graney said in an email.

In some areas, flooding was limited, even if remarkable, and passed quickly in the hours after Debby left the state early Friday. That was the case in Chatham County, home to stretches of both the Deep River and Haw River, which converge downstream to form the Cape Fear River.

Despite substantial flooding and fast moving waters the washed over islands in the Haw River near the historic mill village of Bynum, a short distance north of Pittsboro, Chatham county experienced no storm-related deaths, nor were there any rescues due to storm-related causes, emergency management director Steve Newton told CPP.

A CPP news team member witnessed crowds of local onlookers, a long with a few from further away, venture past caution tape onto the old footbridge at Bynum to get a better look at the fast moving river.

Nearby, the town of Pittsboro reported damage to Pittsboro Elementary School Road and the underlying culvert, near Sanford Road.

The county is continuing to assess damage and the road remains closed as of Monday, although Newton did not anticipate requesting any state or federal assistance for clean-up efforts.

The situation could not have been more different to the east in Duplin County, where local rains combined with streams coming into the area from upstream to produce major flooding along creeks and rivers.

Although the Northeast Fork of the Cape Fear River peaked on Saturday, Duplin County was still experiencing minor flooding on Monday. The waters are expected to recede slowly over the next week, meaning many secondary roads are likely to remain flooded through Saturday.

The number of road closures in effect due to flooding in Duplin County indicates that farmers may see some delay in their operations over the next week, Scotty Summerlin , Duplin County economic director, told CPP.

In nearby Pender County, the situation was similar on Monday. According to a public update from Pender County emergency management, the county continues to experience rising floodwaters from the Black River and Northeast Cape Fear.

Because flooding in Pender County has not fully crested yet, county officials are waiting to see the full impact.

“We haven’t had to make any rescues, but there are ponds in people’s front yards, and flooding along the highways is pretty major,” Brandi Clark , Pender County communications director, told CPP.

NOAA’s forecast shows that water levels on that section of the Northeast Cape Fear is expected to crest Tuesday morning at 16.5 feet, pushing it past the area’s major flood stage of 16 feet.

On top of the existing flooding, some scattered thunderstorms may produce heavy rainfall later this afternoon. However, an expected influx of cooler air should reduce the chance of storms in southeastern North Carolina later this week.

In Robeson County, flooding during and immediately after Debby has simply continued into this week. The county on the South Carolina line experienced ongoing major flooding on the Lumber River this weekend, with water levels forecasted to peak Monday before receding slowly over the next several days.

Robeson County saw some of the worst flooding in the state, and due to additional rain over the weekend, the Lumber River was expected to hit a second crest late Monday. Major flood conditions will persist into the end of the week.

“It’s hard to tell the extent of the damage while the water is still in place,” Chris Campbell of Robeson County’s Soil and Water Conservation department, told CPP.

“Our drainage system here in Robeson County was installed in the ’50s. What happens is that a lot of steam banks will wash out in the flood, which reduces the water-holding capacity of our streams, and causes a lot of sedimentation. Then the next storm, the stream doesn’t hold as much water.

“We’ve been hammered over here in the last 10 years with Hurricane Matthew and then two years later, Hurricane Florence. We had to rebuild twice. So you can imagine how nervous everybody was with this one. And although it was bad, especially in the areas adjacent to the river, it was nothing on the scale of those past storms.”

The drought earlier this summer devastated much of the corn crop in Eastern North Carolina. Now, corn harvest is right around the corner, and farmers cannot get their equipment out into waterlogged fields to harvest what is left of their corn. Plus, water has caused kernels to sprout on some ears, meaning that the grain cannot be sold even if it is harvested in time.

Tammy McLeod , the emergency management director for the city of Lumberton, told CPP that there were no storm-related deaths inside the city limits. However, Lumberton Rescue and EMS said in a Facebook Saturday evening that a motorist died in an unincorporated area of the county after driving their vehicle into floodwaters and being swept away.

In nearby Sampson County, moderate flooding of the Black River soaked areas near the unincorporated community of Tomahawk, with water levels peaking early Sunday morning.

Richard Sauer , the county’s emergency management services director, told CPP that he is unaware of any deaths that occurred as a result of the storm. However, three rescues needed to be made with swift water rescue teams. All three incidents involved people driving around road closed barricades and signs, Sauer said.

Before the worst of the flooding, an EF-2 rated tornado touched down in the Town of Harrells on Wednesday, wrecking two homes.

Sauer told CPP that there was no other significant structural damage to report as of Monday morning, although the county will be conducting further damage assessment this week and have requested state assistance to carry it out.

In Sampson County, strong winds also caused more agricultural damage than rising water.

“There is water standing in fields, but wind definitely diminished the quality of some crops like tobacco,” Zachary Parker , Sampson County extension agent, told CPP.

Health hazards in the water

Duplin County is the largest producer of hogs in the state, with nearly 2 million hogs on its farms. Breaches of hog lagoons — the large pits where farmers store hog waste — due to flooding are a major environmental and public health concern.

Due to heavy rains in late July, the water level in hog lagoons across Eastern North Carolina was already high when Debby arrived.

“The problem is that farmers can’t get out to pump water out of the hog lagoons on saturated fields,” Mark Seitz , Pender County extension agent, told CPP. “Nobody has had an overflow yet, but it’s close, and they’re having some problems.”

As of Monday, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality reported three hog lagoons in Pitt County, and one in Lenoir County, as having noncompliant water levels after the storm.

One large poultry farm in Robeson County flooded as a result of the storm, which raises similar, but less severe, environmental concerns as flooded hog farms.

Animal waste isn’t the only potential concern. In Morehead City, in coastal Carteret County, 100,000 gallons of partially treated wastewater overflowed from a treatment facility into Calico Creek.

Brunswick County and Onslow County saw similar problems with wastewater plants late last week.

Brunswick County officials said overflows of wastewater occurred at three sites:

• 830,000 to 860,000 gallons of treated and partially-treated wastewater spilled over from the West Brunswick Regional Water Reclamation Facility  into the Lockwood Folly River on August 9.
• 27,000 to 30,000 gallons of untreated wastewater spilled over from the Sea Trail Wastewater Treatment Facility into the Calabash River on August 9. The same facility had a 3,000 gallon overflow on August 7.
• 1,000 gallons of untreated wastewater leaked from a service line in Ocean Isle Beach into a stormwater pond, which drains to a tributary of the Shallotte River, on August 9.

“All we can do is hope and pray that it doesn’t keep raining,” Seitz said in Pender County. Unfortunately, the Monday night forecast for Eastern North Carolina brings more storms.

“We are suffering a double whammy in terms of crop production, because we had eight weeks of drought,” Seitz said.

“I’d hate to think of what this region would be fighting in terms of flooding right now had we not had that drought. We got 20 inches of rain in the last half of July, and if the ground hadn’t been bone dry to absorb that first 20 inches, we might be fighting Hurricane Florence levels of flooding.”

Jane Winik Sartwell, Lucas Thomae and Frank Taylor contributed to this article.

Storm aftermath photo gallery