"This may be the most water we've seen for a long time," Gov. McMaster warned as Debby bore down on South Carolina on Aug. 5.
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00:00This is Governor Henry McMaster in South Carolina addressing people in the storm.
00:08Good afternoon. In Hebrews and also in the Old Testament,
00:12Noah was warned concerning events yet to come in a storm.
00:18So in unseen reverent obedience, he constructed an ark.
00:23And that ark saved him, his house, and his household.
00:28Noah was prepared.
00:30If you would, if you're a praying person, please pray with me.
00:34Great Creator, we don't know what the storm is going to do,
00:38but we do know what's coming.
00:40We're warned. Help us to practice sound judgment with those warnings.
00:45Let us be obedient to those warnings and be prepared.
00:49Those preparations may help to save our household or the household of others.
00:55Watch over us as we watch over one another.
00:58And I pray this in your mighty name. Amen.
01:01Thank you, Chairman.
01:03Well, we have a lot of answers, a lot of information for you.
01:07We do have quite a storm coming.
01:10It's not a hurricane wind, but those categories, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5,
01:15those measure only the wind.
01:17They do not reflect the water at all.
01:20But we've got a lot of water coming.
01:22We had a lot of water in 2015, as you remember.
01:25We had a lot of water in 2017.
01:28And the results of overcoming all of that took weeks sometimes,
01:33or sometimes even longer.
01:35But we are prepared.
01:37Everyone is on deck.
01:39We've gone through these things many times before.
01:43We know we have a lot of new people in the state,
01:45so we ask the new people particularly to learn about what you're supposed to do.
01:51You can go to the website.
01:52We'll go into all that to have brochures at some of the grocery stores or drug stores.
01:58They're very helpful.
02:00But the main thing to remember is to get your information from official sources only.
02:05Don't listen to someone who may not be fully apprised of exactly what the facts are
02:11or what the implications are.
02:13We'll be opening shelters.
02:15We'll be school closings.
02:17Those sorts of things will be open to the local government.
02:20But I assure you that the team that we have in South Carolina,
02:23much of which is reflected by the people that you see here,
02:28is experienced, dedicated, and ready to work.
02:32And we communicate, collaborate, and cooperate better than anybody in the country.
02:37And that's why we've been able to withstand a lot of the things that have come our way.
02:41And this is yet another one.
02:43We're not sure.
02:44We won't know until it happens.
02:46But it may be that this is the most water we've seen for a long time.
02:51Maybe.
02:52We don't know.
02:53So stay alert, stay tuned, and stay safe.
02:56And now John Quarello.
02:58We refer to him as John Q. sometimes because Quarello is hard to say.
03:04But he's here, and he has a lot of information.
03:06You'll enjoy listening to him.
03:08Thank you, Governor.
03:09John Quarello with the National Weather Service.
03:12So there's potential for historic rainfall,
03:15which is likely to result in areas of catastrophic flash and urban flooding,
03:19this week in association with Tropical Storm Debbie.
03:22Debbie made landfall in the Big Bend area of Florida this morning at 7 a.m.
03:26All right, and that was the Governor Henry McMaster there of South Carolina,
03:30and now the National Weather Service is sharing some of their forecast information.
03:34As we take a look at what's going on right now,
03:36we want to give you the absolute latest here with this.
03:39And Charleston, our team here believes that we're going to be dealing with major flooding here,
03:44a significant not just storm surge with multiple days of an onshore wind shoving seawater into the coastline,
03:51but also just especially heavy, heavy rain.
03:54We're looking at well over a foot of rain in many areas, 12 to 18 inches,
03:58some barely inland, 18 to 24-plus inches of rain will be falling over the next few days.
04:03There are flash flood emergencies in effect here in the parts of Columbia County,
04:07western parts of Baker County, southeastern Hamilton County, as well as Suwannee County there into Florida.
04:13And that's the most escalated type of flash flood alert that exists here in the U.S.
04:19As we take a look at the tornado watches, at the moment we are tornado warning free for the southeast.
04:24There are two tornado watches in effect, one runs until 6 p.m. from Palm Coast to Brunswick and St. Simons Island.
04:31Another one picks up from central parts of the Georgia coastline all the way up through Savannah,
04:34Hilton Head, Kiowa Island, Charleston, and other areas nearby.
04:38So we need to stay on top of the tornado threat.
04:40Now, if you're looking at the actual storm statistics, you can see we're seeing a little less deep convection there.
04:45So the storm is deteriorating over land, but it's going to be reenergized some as the center drifts back over near
04:52and perhaps likely over the southeast coast and offshore.
04:55Max sustained winds down to 50 miles per hour and a lot of power outages.
04:59That's a big story, too.