Debby is a billion-dollar catastrophe with dams failed, 75 people rescued in Georgia

It’s been 12 days since Tropical Storm Debby brought historic, torrential downpours to the Georgia-South Carolina border, causing catastrophic floods up to 60 miles inland.

Lakes and ponds reached capacity or overflowed and dams breached, causing a cascade of floods in the coastal plains.

State of Emergency Declarations by Gov. Brian Kemp have been extended twice and many communities are still in disrepair, despite 300 National Guard and dozens of Georgia Emergency Management responders being deployed. The latest declaration extended the Aug. 15 deadline to Aug. 20.

Karen Clark & Company, a Boston-based company that uses high-resolution models to estimate damage from storms, said the cost of the storm for the whole affected area will be close to $1.4 billion. Of that, KC&C said, $440 million makes up flood damage, and $130 million makes up storm surge. The numbers were released in a publication Thursday ,

Statesboro, Georgia, got nearly a foot of rain in less than 48 hours between Aug. 5 and Aug. 7, according to the National Weather Service and a community rain gauge network . The already saturated ground from rains in July compounded with the drenching from Debby caused half a dozen dams to breach. Creeks and streams overflowed, turning nearby streets into rivers and neighborhoods into swamps. Seventy-five rescues were made on Aug. 6, according to Dal Cannady, Bulloch County Emergency Management Services spokesperson.

The dams overflowed as early as 7 a.m. Aug. 6, cascading like dominoes through Bulloch county, snaking around the northern and western perimeter of Statesboro.

Oglesby Pond “busted fairly early,” said John Pope, director of development of Bulloch County. “Then those waters went downstream to Lotts Creek, then Lake Collins was the second dam that went. Those two cascading down Lotts Creek hit Cypress Lake hard.”

All of the dams are privately owned and range in size and age. Some are over 100 years old, such as Oglesby Pond built in 1920 , or near 70 years old such as Lake Collins , according to the Army Corps of Engineers National Inventory of Dam. The Ledger-Enquirer has reached out for comment about dam ownership and liability to Bulloch County, but has not received a response.

Bulloch County is “calm now,” but in a state of disrepair, Cannady said Wednesday.

“We’re in the process now of trying to assess, repair, and repave to re-open streets at a passable level,” he said.

The county has 700 miles of dirt roads – the most anywhere in the state – and 550 paved roads, according to Calbart. On Aug. 7, at least 100 roads were reportedly inaccessible because they were washed out or flooded.

“Officials are assessing and constantly updating which roads are and are not accessible,” Cannady, who has lived in the area for 40 years, told the Ledger-Enquirer. “Nothing like this has ever happened before. We’ve had tornadoes and debris damage, but never a straight water situation or flooding from a hurricane like this.”

On Aug. 7, Bulloch County Public Works made an emergency request of $5 million to improve the roads.

Flood insurance in an era of climate change

State and county emergency management groups are still counting the homes damaged or destroyed from flooding.

GEMA has assessed 81 homes in Georgia. One was completely destroyed, and 52 were considered majorly damaged from Tropical Storm Debby.

As of Tuesday, Pope said Bulloch County EMS counted 68 homes with major impacts or destruction from flooding. Some of these homes were not in the flood zone, he said.

Counting and reporting the type of damages from GEMA and Bulloch County EMS are a critical part of the flood insurance process to see if homeowners meet thresholds set by the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the National Flood Insurance Program.

“If the cost to repair is 50% or more of the market value, the structure is considered Substantially Damaged and must be brought into compliance with current local floodplain management standards,” according to FEMA’s website.

Most of Georgia does not have flood insurance. Less than 2% of homes statewide have flood insurance, Mark Friedlander, director of corporate communications for the Insurance Information Institute, said in an email. That number rises up to 8% along the coast, he said.

“If a homeowner lives in a flood plain flood insurance must be purchased separately from property insurance through a private flood insurer or federally backed National Flood Insurance Program,” he said.

The $1.4 billion dollar total cost of Debby by Karen Clark & Company does not include damages from National Flood Insurance Program losses.

Accuweather Lead Hurricane Expert Alex DaSilva said early estimates from Hurricane Beryl and Debby will have a total economic impact of $60 billion.

“If you are putting off flood insurance, you better buy flood insurance,” said Claudia Benitez-Nelson, professor and researcher at South Carolina University and member of Science Moms . “This is not just about hurricane Debby now. Climate change is changing the intensity of all the hurricanes coming in. That was just a tropical storm.”

This week Climate Central, the nonprofit dedicated to making the science more understandable, launched an interactive tool called Climate Shift Index Ocean. The tool shows how likely ocean temperature increase is due to human-induced climate change. Debby gained strength and speed from ocean temperatures of 86 degrees off the Florida coast . Those temperatures were made 500 times more likely because of human-induced climate change, according to the CSI Ocean tool . Hurricane Beryl was 400 times more likely.

“Oceans are ground zero for climate change” Andrew Pershing, lead author of CSI Ocean and climate scientist at Climate Central, said. “It’s hard to imagine getting these temperatures were getting without climate change.”

Higher humidity is what allows these storms in warmer tropical cyclones to hold so much rain.

“They are going to continue to dump lots of water on aging infrastructure not intended to handle the amount of rainfall we’re having,” Benitez-Nelson said. “This is is not a one-off. Our climate is changing and these are the impacts of climate change. We as a population need to live with the reality. We need to update infrastructure and think about how we build and plan for a system where we know we’re going to have a lot of rain.”

A search for housing + GA agriculture hurt by storm

Most of the flood waters have receded in parts of Bulloch County. K-12 students are returning to school after missing the entire week last week, Cannady said.

Still, hundreds of renters are searching for housing after flood waters and broken air conditioning have created moldy messes.

Many have turned to Facebook groups pleading and searching for help and housing. Many apartment managers are waiving application fees, especially in areas such as Richmond Hill.

Pope said peanut harvest season starts soon and worries that the effects to Cypress Lake will greatly impact the area’s peanut crop.

In Kemp’s updated response to Debby, he said the Georgia Department of Agriculture is working with the state to promote safety and monitor Cypress Lake. Additional agriculture losses from the storm include:

• Peanut crops lost in Screven County (which received 14 inches of rain)

• Pecan crops lost in Lownes County

• Thomas County lost citrus

• Tattnall County lost pecan and poultry

• 54,000 chickens were lost from drowning in Irwin County

Bulloch, Bryan, Effingham, and Chatham, Charlton, and Brantley counties remained under a flood warning Friday .

“While the worst of Debby has passed, this remains an active situation,” Kemp said on Wednesday.