- One person is dead after a tornado spawned by Debby tore through part of North Carolina’s Wilson County in the earliest hours of Thursday morning, leaving behind damage to a middle school, a church, and multiple homes.

A man was killed after his home in the town of Lucama collapsed, a county spokesperson told CNN.

At least four people in Florida and one in Georgia were also killed by Debby.

- Debby has whipped up at least a dozen tornadoes as of Thursday that have roared through parts of Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia.

A tornado in Snow Hill, North Carolina early Thursday was described as “large, extremely dangerous, and potentially deadly.

” A tornado watch is in effect through 8 p.

m.

ET for 6.

8 million people in parts of eastern North Carolina and southern Virginia, including the cities of Raleigh, Virginia Beach, and Richmond.

- The system will pick up speed as its center moves north and its impacts push into the Northeast.

Debby will accelerate through Pennsylvania and New York on Friday and move through New England by early Saturday afternoon, bringing heavy rain and flash flooding to a region drenched by storms earlier this week.

- President Joe Biden has approved disaster declarations for Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas – all of which have been pummeled by Debby this week.

More than 700 Federal Emergency Management Agency personnel have been deployed to the Southeast, and search and rescue teams are on standby to assist as needed, the agency said Wednesday.

- Debby’s torrential rainfall cut off one North Carolina town from its surrounding areas after up to 8 inches of rain fell in just a few hours Wednesday night, according to a rare flash flood emergency issued by the National Weather Service.

Officials in Bladenboro – located in the southern part of the state – reported 3-foot deep floodwater.

- Potentially dangerous heat has been hovering over the Southeast in Debby’s wake and is expected to persist through the weekend as storm recovery continues.

While high temperatures in the upper 80s and lower 90s are expected, the heat indices – under combined heat and humidity – could be higher, including in Steinhatchee, Florida, near where Debby made its first landfall.

Debby’s deluge has been a clear illustration of the impact of global warming caused by fossil fuel pollution, which is making storms more intense and strengthening them more quickly.

Debby, for instance, tracked through near-record warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico, which helped it intensify before making landfall as a hurricane in Florida.

As Debby has churned through the Southeast, the storm has left behind disastrous scenes.

Homes have been shredded by winds and swamped by floodwaters, and roads have been washed out or submerged, creating hazardous conditions for impacted communities.

Three children were rescued by emergency crews from a flooded Marsh Creek in Raleigh after getting stuck while trying to cross the water on Thursday.

The children were part of a group of five who were riding bikes when they said they came across the creek.

The children said the creek appeared to be calm, and so they attempted to cross it – two made it across, when suddenly the last three got caught in the surging waters.

An 11-year-old held onto a tree branch with his 8-year-old sister and their 10-year-old friend as they waited for rescuers, reported.

They were rescued within five minutes of rescuers’ arrival, the station reported.

In South Carolina’s Lowcountry, a home in Bluffton has become an alligator’s paradise as floodwaters turned Adrienne LeBlanc’s yard into an inviting swampland.

Though LeBlanc is no stranger to alligators – often seeing them sunbathing in the distance – she was surprised to wake up after heavy rains Wednesday to discover her backyard had been invaded by alligators.

“It’s like National Geographic in our backyard right now,” LeBlanc told CNN.

She counted eight alligators swimming around her house and saw a few of them wrestling.

“Jokingly I told my husband, ‘When I wake up tomorrow that bad boy is going to be in our bedroom,’” LeBlanc said.

After 17 years of living in Bluffton, LeBlanc said she has experienced this level of flooding once – when Hurricane Matthew made landfall in the state in 2016.

South Carolina hasn’t seen a named storm make landfall on its shores since Hurricane Ian’s arrival in 2022 as a Category 1 storm.

The last named storm to track across the state in any fashion was in August 2023.

CNN’s Andy Rose, Sharif Paget, Kara Mihm, Christina Zdanowicz, and CNN meteorologist Taylor Ward contributed to this report.