Flood and tornado threats ramp up as Debby approaches Florida

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Tony Laubach reported live from Perry, Florida, on Aug. 4, where he spoke with locals who are staying in hotels to ride out the storm in case of dangers at home.

Transcript

00:00We do have a team coverage here throughout Florida and the Southeast as

00:05we continue to track Debbie. Right now we want to head on over to a

00:10meteorologist and storm chaser Tony Laubach who is tracking Debbie's outer

00:15bands tonight. He joins us live from Perry, Florida which is about an

00:21hour southeast of Tallahassee. Tony, what have you been dealing with tonight?

00:25You're in a pretty hot zone right now.

00:30Yeah, unfortunately nothing that we've dealt with all day today is gonna

00:34compare to what we're gonna be looking at about 12 hours from now as Debbie

00:38will work its way on shore about 15 miles from here, give or take a few miles

00:43just depending on where exactly makes landfall. Here in Perry, the most populous

00:47area really kind of between the Tallahassee and Lake City and Gainesville

00:52areas. This is really gonna be kind of ground zero I think for much of the more

00:56impactful areas at least in terms of when it comes to population and this was

01:00kind of one of the areas that took the brunt of Adelia last year. Today it's

01:05been mainly bands of rain. The storm has been slow moving up the coast so it's

01:09taking a while for really a lot of things to get here but we had that

01:12tornado watch that expired at 8 but a new one has taken its place. That one

01:16goes until 6 a.m. tomorrow morning so we are expecting a long night of these

01:21bands that's going to produce the tornado potential here across the

01:24northern portions of the state of Florida. We talked to some folks that are

01:28actually hanging around here today. A lot of people here from the area that went

01:33out for that left Adelia last year that went out of the area hanging around here

01:39but a lot of them were living in homes that aren't really built to withstand

01:42strong winds and as a result they're kind of doing the in-between. Instead of

01:45staying in those dangerous homes they're doing what one resident is doing here

01:49today. I'm gonna stay here at the motel. No I'm staying here at the motel. I ain't

01:56gonna leave this time. You know I don't think it's gonna be as bad but it's

02:00gonna be a, I think it's gonna be strong. I got a big oak tree in my house and it

02:04hangs over my bedroom. I don't want to be in there with it. I mean there's limbs

02:08that big around that goes over the top of my house you know and I don't want to

02:12I don't want to chance that. And it would certainly be a good idea for folks to

02:20take that advice especially if you live in a manufactured home or a trailer home.

02:24Yes we're not expecting the winds of this to be in the category 4 range like

02:28we saw with Adelia last year but we're still we're still talking pretty

02:32significant winds and again if you're in a home that's not anchored down very

02:34well that is going to be a very dangerous place to be. So take the heat

02:38find someplace more sturdy to be to tonight and not to mention again as I

02:41talked about that tornado threat again new tornado watch that's going until 6

02:45o'clock on Monday morning. So that tornado threat is gonna linger through

02:49the overnight hours which makes it even more dangerous because already with

02:52hurricane tornadoes they're hard enough to see as it is during the day so at

02:57night even more dangerous. So make sure you have that AccuWeather app. Not only

03:00do you have it on your phone but make sure those alerts are on and audible so

03:04don't turn your phones off tonight especially if you're living in that

03:07tornado watch. You're gonna want to have those warnings to you so you get those

03:11alerts because these tornadoes happen fast they spin up quickly and they

03:15might not come with much warning so everything you can do to get yourself

03:19ahead of those situations is going to be the best thing you can do Bree. But

03:22tomorrow again we're gonna be hunkered down here we expect the worst of the

03:26conditions to arrive probably it around sunset around sunrise sorry tomorrow

03:30morning and lingering maybe into the lunch hour so we're expecting several

03:33hours of very bad conditions here in Perry and we'll be here for that

03:37tomorrow. Tony Lombak speaking the AccuWeather language please stay safe

03:42all great tips and advice there thank you again also for that update.

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