North Carolinians compare Tropical Storm Debby to 2018 Florence

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- It's official. North Carolina is now under a state of emergency in preparation for Tropical Storm Debby. Gov. Roy Cooper made the announcement Monday evening ahead of what some have already begun to declare similar to Hurricane Florence of 2018.

"We've not done a comparison of the two," said Justin Graney, director of external affairs for North Carolina Emergency Management. "We're primarily focused on the impacts of what Debby is going to bring and what that looks like based on the current river forecast, the amount of rain we received recently, and what those impacts are going to look like. That's how we're going to position."

While Debby and Florence differ in their path toward North Carolina, Debby is expected to behave much like Florence in that the 2018 hurricane slowed to a stall and dumped several inches of rain on North Carolina communities.

"It was a little surreal. Never had to deal with that," said Raleigh resident Brad Whelton. He and his family had just moved to Raleigh from Michigan when Florence arrived not long after their move.

"We moved into our house and I went and bought a generator. I did remember we did lose power for six to eight hours. So we got our candles and batteries and flashlights and all that stuff ready," he said.

According to the National Hurricane Center, Debby is forecasted to stall in South Carolina and bring lingering rain to North Carolina later this week.

"A lot of lessons of course have been learned in response to hurricanes Matthew and Florence and we use those in making life-saving decisions and resource allocation decisions as we move into further on through this week," said Graney.

Whelton added, "The biggest thing I remember is watching all the trees and you could just feel like the circle of the wind. And the trees would just flow back. It looked like they were going to snap off. It was just wild."