Hurricane Debby kills fifth person as tropical storm rips through southern states

A fifth person has died after Hurricane Debby smashed into the US coast on Monday.

The fifth victim has been confirmed in Moutlrie, Georgia, after a tree fell onto his home, according to Colquitt County official. It comes after a 13-year-old boy died on Monday morning after a tree fell on a mobile home southwest of Gainesville, according to the Levy County Sheriff’s Office.

And in Dixie County, just east of where the storm made landfall, a 38-year-old woman and a 12-year-old boy died in a car crash on wet roads Sunday night . The Florida Highway Patrol said a 14-year-old boy who was a passenger was hospitalized with serious injuries. Record-setting rain was expected to cause flash flooding , with up to 30 inches (76 centimeters) possible in some areas, the National Hurricane Center said. Up to 18 inches (46 centimeters) was forecast in central and north Florida.

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A flash flood emergency was issued into Monday evening for the Lake City area, where up to a foot (30.5 centimeters) of rain had fallen and more was expected. The potential for high water also threatened Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned that just because the storm was moving into Georgia, it didn’t mean the state wouldn’t continue to see threats as waterways north of the border fill up and flow south. “It is a very saturating, wet storm,” he said during an afternoon briefing at the state’s emergency operations center. “When they crest and the water that’s going to come down from Georgia, it’s just something that we’re going to be on alert for not just throughout today, but for the next week.”

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Debby made landfall along the Gulf Coast of Florida early Monday as a Category 1 hurricane. It since has weakened to a tropical storm and is moving slowly, covering roads with water and contributing to at least five deaths.

A truck driver died on Interstate 75 in the Tampa area after he lost control of his tractor trailer, which flipped over a concrete wall and dangled over the edge before the cab dropped into the water below. Sheriff’s office divers located the driver, a 64-year-old man from Mississippi, in the cab 40 feet (12 meters) below the surface, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.

Nearly 200,000 customers remained without power in Florida and Georgia on Monday afternoon, down from a peak of more than 350,000, according to PowerOutage.us and Georgia Electric Membership Corp.