AccuWeather spoke with Mayor Teresa Myers Ervin on Aug. 7 about how the city of Florence, South Carolina, has prepared for the impending effects of Tropical Storm Debby.
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00:00As Hurricane Debbie or as Tropical Storm Debbie keeps churning, Florence, South Carolina will be one of the cities that will feel the impacts.
00:10Theresa Myers-Irvin is the mayor of Florence and ma'am, thank you so much for joining us.
00:16I know you're very busy, so we appreciate you coming on and talking to us here at the AccuWeather Network.
00:22Now, we haven't had a whole lot of rain yet, but we are projecting about three to six inches of rain that will start to fall in the Florence area beginning tonight, lasting into tomorrow.
00:31And the concern is, Mayor, it could be in a short period of time and that means the possibility of flooding.
00:37How are your teams preparing for this event?
00:42We've started preparing by making sure that we clean out our stormwater drainage.
00:46We're encouraging all residents, if you have any yard debris, please bag it up.
00:50Make sure it does not get in our stormwater, but we've also been in communication with our governor as well as our local representative of our senators.
00:59We have prepared equipment such as high water evacuation vehicles for our areas that may flood so that we can get any citizens who are elected to stay in those areas, get them out safely.
01:09So we are really at this point having our staff be on standby for emergency services, making sure that we can keep our stormwater drainage areas open for this large amount of rain that we're expecting over the next few days.
01:23And of course, Florence, no stranger to flooding, as you know, and of course, we've had other storms in the past and flooding, I assume that is your biggest concern.
01:34And that's what you're preparing for the most, ma'am.
01:36Is that correct?
01:37Yes, when it comes to flooding, a lot of times people think of the water level rising.
01:42But one of the concerns that we have is that when you have a large amount of rain in a flat city, because we're flat, that water can be maintained for a certain time period, which also affects the trees.
01:53So we're concerned about not only flooding, but trees falling.
01:57And we have had two or three trees already to fall here in the city.
02:01So I'm encouraging our citizens to be careful.
02:03And also, if you can stay off the roads, stay off the roads.
02:07So it's flooding and trees falling.
02:10And ma'am, do you have any are there any plans or do you already have shelters open for anybody, as you mentioned, that are in low lying areas that seek to leave?
02:22Yes, we have American Red Cross and they've already got two shelters set up here in the state of Florence.
02:27So I would tell anyone, please reach out to American Red Cross so you can see which shelter is closer to you.
02:34So, yes, we do have shelters already set up.
02:36And also we always have our Salvation Army, who's also always available for sheltering.
02:41We also have no one in shelter, which is a program that when you don't have a home or you're homeless, you can come there and have residency.
02:48So we do have shelters set up for individuals who may need to evacuate any area.
02:54And it's so great to hear that you and your team is on top of this situation.
02:58And of course, everybody ready to go as the rain comes in later on tonight.
03:03Mayor Teresa Myers-Irvin of Florence, South Carolina, thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy day to join us here on Accuweather Early.
03:12Thank you so much for keeping all our citizens updated.
03:14We appreciate you.
03:15And we thank you for your service.
03:17And we appreciate you, ma'am.