Tropical Storm Debby sweeps over Florida

A sailboat damaged by the storm was pushed up against a quay in Tampa Bay. Hurricane Debby made landfall early Monday morning local time. It was soon downgraded from a Category 1 hurricane to a tropical storm, but even so, it still reached wind speeds of up to 130 kilometers per hour (about 80 miles per hour).

In Wimauma, a small town outside Tampa, a road was swept away by the masses of water. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis stressed that the storm would continue to pose a constant threat in the coming days. According to media reports, several people have been killed due to the storm in recent days.

Residents in nearby Largo got wet feet when water seeped into some of their homes. According to the US power outage tracker poweroutage.us, Tropical Storm Debby caused blackouts in more than 300,000 households. Over the weekend, authorities had ordered evacuations for some areas in Citrus County in northwestern Florida.

It wasn't just homes that were flooded. This man resorted to a measuring cup to bail out his car, while others used towels and even shovels to salvage their vehicles.

These three young residents of rural Wimauma made their way through the flooded streets on an all-terrain vehicle. It's not uncommon for alligators to stray into flooded areas; with heavy rainfall in the forecast, catastrophic flooding is expected for the rest of the week.

Aside from flooding, the storm's wind speed has also been cause for concern. Numerous trees have been blown over, obstructing roads. And according to local media, one teenager was killed near the town of Fanning Springs when a tree fell on his mobile home. The storm is now moving north, toward the states of Georgia and South Carolina.