Hurricane Debby threatens “catastrophic flooding” across Southeast

Flooding could disrupt supply chains across the Southeast U.S. this week, as Hurricane Debby sweeps slowly over the region state with drenching rain after making landfall this morning in northern Florida’s Big Bend.

The region’s major cargo airports will likely duck those impacts, but there is a high risk of flooding at the ports of Jacksonville, Savannah, and Charleston, as well as eight intermodal hubs around Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, according to a video press conference from supply chain risk management firm Everstream Analytics.

Although it has lower wind speeds forecast than past storms like Hurricane Beryl just last month, the hurricane could do most of its damage through extended, soaking rainfall.

That’s because the Category 1 storm will lose strength after moving off the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, leaving its remnants to drift very slowly and “basically stall out” across the Southeast region over the next five days, Everstream Chief Meteorologist Jon Davis said. The result will be a “major flooding event” due to the long duration of impacts, leading to “extremely high rainfall totals” that could cause significant supply chain disruptions, he said.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had similar warnings, saying “Potentially historic heavy rainfall, associated with Hurricane Debby, across southeast Georgia and South Carolina through Friday morning will likely result in areas of catastrophic flooding.”

Specific commercial disruption could strike industries including aerospace & defense, life sciences, manufacturing, oil & gas, and high-tech, according to an analysis by Resilinc. Those potential impacts could involve nearly 17,000 sites at risk, which perform activities like manufacturing, warehousing, distribution, fabrication, and testing.

In response, the emergency response nonprofit American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN) is urging residents of the Southeast to heed emergency management officials’ warnings about everything from safely evacuating to sheltering in place– and asking members of the logistics community to be ready to help. “In addition to high winds and a significant storm surge, Hurricane Debby has the potential to bring huge amounts of rain and significant flooding to many parts of Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas. That has us especially concerned, because flood waters are often the deadliest and most underestimated effect of a hurricane,” Kathy Fulton, ALAN’s executive director, said in a release.

The event also highlights the increasing need to improve supply chain resiliency, according to Moody’s. In an analysis, the firm noted that following Hurricane Beryl, which was the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record in the North Atlantic Basin, Hurricane Debby is the second U.S. hurricane landfall of 2024, which is forecast to be an active hurricane season. “With the increasing frequency and severity of hurricanes, the resilience of supply chains faces unprecedented challenges,” John Donigian, Supplier Risk Management Strategy, Moody’s, said in a statement. “Proactive supply chain planning, backed by advanced risk data and analytics, is essential. For instance, by analyzing real-time data on hurricane paths and intensities, businesses can pre-emptively reroute shipments, secure alternative suppliers, and adjust inventory levels to mitigate potential disruptions.”