Tornado death raises Tropical Storm Debby toll to seven as rains keep falling

One person has died in a home damaged by a tornado in North Carolina, authorities have said.

The fatality raises Tropical Storm Debby’s death toll to seven.

The person was killed in Lucama, North Carolina, Wilson County spokesman Stephen Mann said in an email.

The storm was expected to churn up the East Coast, where residents as far north as Vermont could get several inches of flooding rain this weekend.

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The National Hurricane Centre says Debby came ashore early on Thursday near Bulls Bay, South Carolina.

Debby first made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane early on Monday on the Gulf Coast of Florida. It was still a tropical storm by Thursday morning, with maximum sustained winds at 50mph.

Debby was not done flooding parts of eastern South Carolina and south-east North Carolina, and an additional three to nine inches of rain is possible as the storm moves north, raising concerns of flash floods in mountainous areas of Virginia and West Virginia.

Debby also could bring more tornadoes in parts of North Carolina and Virginia, forecasters said.

At least three tornadoes were reported overnight in North Carolina, including one around 3am that damaged at least four houses, a church and a school in Wilson County east of Raleigh, county officials said.

At least four dams were breached north west of Savannah in Georgia’s Bulloch County, but no deaths had been reported, authorities said.

More than 75 people were rescued from floodwaters in the county, said Corey Kemp, director of emergency management, and about 100 roads were closed.

Debby also dumped rain on communities all the way up to the Great Lakes and New York and New Jersey. Moisture from the tropical storm strengthened another system on Tuesday evening, which caused strong thunderstorms, according to weather service meteorologist Scott Kleebauer.

About 270,000 customers remained without power in Ohio as of Thursday morning, according to PowerOutage.us, following severe storms including two confirmed tornadoes.

A state of emergency was in effect for both North Carolina and Virginia. Maryland issued a state of preparedness declaration that coordinates preparations without declaring an emergency.

At least seven people have died due to the storm, five of them in traffic accidents or from fallen trees. The sixth death involved a 48-year-old man in Gulfport, Florida, whose body was recovered after his anchored sailboat partially sank.