2 Key Bridges Reopen, 700 Water Rescues: Debby Smacks Tampa Bay

Updated at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday

SARASOTA, FL — Water rescues topped 500 in Sarasota Monday as Hurricane Debby swamped Tampa Bay, with neighbors helping neighbors flee in Manatee and Sarasota counties. The death toll climbed to five victims in Florida, and one in Georgia, while two key bridges in the Tampa metro are open again Tuesday.

Khylan Robinson paddled her kayak to checking on her Sarasota neighbors. “Going up and down those streets, I had a knot in my chest, scared to death that I was going to find someone’s pet or an old person that couldn’t get out of their house,” Robinson told WFLA.

More than 200 people were rescued from flooded homes in Manatee County.

“We packed what we could in 15 minutes, waited for fire rescue to come, my house is destroyed,” Jill Sauchinintz told WFLA. “Water is coming in through the garage, water is coming in through the siding glass doors, water is coming in through the bathroom doors, water is coming in through the front door," as she waited for Manatee rescuers.

Howard Frankland Bridge’s northbound lanes and the Sunshine Skyway Bridge were both shut down by the storm, but have since reopened. Heavy waves caused a portion of the Howard Frankland to wash away, while high winds shut down the Skyway during the storm.

Six deaths have been attributed to Tropical Storm Debby, which moved out of northern Florida Tuesday morning — five of the fatalities were in Florida and one in Georgia.

Debby made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane Monday around 7 a.m. in the Big Bend area. The storm is now moving into southeast Georgia and the Carolinas, bringing with it historic rainfall, the potential for flooding and gust winds.

A driver, a 64-year-old Mississippi man, lost control of his 18-wheel tractor-trailer truck on the wet roadway on Interstate 75 near milepost 263 Monday around 2:30 a.m. He drove into the Tampa Bypass Canal and his body was recovered later that day.

A Gulfport boater’s body was found Monday, WFLA said. The body of Brian J. Clough, 48, was recovered from his sinking vessel.

Related Stories:

• Teenage Boy Killed After Debby Makes Landfall In Northern FL: Sheriff
• Driver Of 18-Wheeler Dies After Driving Into I-75 Canal: FHP
• 500 People Rescued From Flooded Sarasota Homes, More Expected: Police

A 13-year-old boy was crushed to death around 8 a.m. after a tree fell on a mobile home he was inside, according to a Levy County Department of Public Safety news release.

In Dixie County, a 38-year-old woman and a 12-year-old boy were killed in a car crash on wet roads, while a 19-year-old man died in south Georgia when a tree fell on his home, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Debby is now bringing potentially historic heavy rainfall and catastrophic flooding across southeast Georgia and eastern South Carolina, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Meanwhile, Florida continues to deal with deadly hazards from the storm, including downed power lines and flooded areas.

More than 111,000 people remain without power Tuesday, according to PowerOutage.us. Most of the outages are in northern Florida and the Big Bend area.

The center of Tropical Storm Debby was about 10 miles east of Savannah, Georgia, and moving east-northeast at near 3 mph, according to the 5 p.m. Tuesday update from the National Hurricane Center.

Maximum sustained winds are near 40 mph with higher gusts. Tropical storm-force winds of at least 39 mph extend outward up to 205 miles from the storm's center.

Debby’s center is off the Georgia coast and is expected to move back inland over South Carolina on Thursday, the NHC said. Parts of Virginia, the Middle Atlantic states, New York State and New England could see 3 to 6 inches of rain with local amounts reaching 8 inches through Saturday, with a threat of flash and urban flooding.