MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
To the Carolinas, where heavy rains from Tropical Storm Debby continue to fall. Debby has been hovering over the Atlantic, is expected to come ashore again tomorrow. The city of Charleston went under curfew Monday. That curfew was lifted this morning. South Carolina Public Radio's Victoria Hansen ventured into the streets today to see how people are dealing with the storm's aftermath. Hey, Victoria.
VICTORIA HANSEN, BYLINE: Hi there.
KELLY: Hi. Tell me what those streets look like, what kind of things you're hearing from the people you were running into.
HANSEN: Of course. Yeah, I saw mostly empty streets today and - oh, yeah - plenty of water pumps out there doing their job. And I spoke with a few people that were out and about trying to dodge the rain that's still very much coming in. But, you know, this is a peninsula city that became an island, you might say, for a couple of days as people were prevented from traveling into the city while it got more than a foot of rain in a very short amount of time.
And again, the streets are unusually quiet. But I met Josh Cantwell as he was walking to a parking garage. He was going to pick up his car. He left it on higher ground there just a couple of days ago to try to protect it from flash flooding.
JOSH CANTWELL: The city was definitely prepared for it this time, which is a nice change. There's still flooding in certain areas, but a lot of areas that were very problematic, you walk around, and it's not as bad as it was.
HANSEN: And Cantwell has lived here his entire life. He was even here for Hurricane Hugo. He says, yes, the city has seen a lot of water in recent days, but he credits this curfew with its quick recovery.
KELLY: Yeah. Stay with that curfew for a second. Sounds like he thought it worked. It was presumably an inconvenience to other people in Charleston?
HANSEN: Oh, yeah, there's been a lot of talk about it. It certainly was an inconvenience but one that our new mayor says was necessary to keep people safe. You know, it did impact businesses downtown, people visiting - people like Michael Pheland. He's a tourist. He's visiting from Ireland. And he arrived here on Monday - would you believe it? - from Florida. And he was trying to tour downtown, even if he just could for a couple of minutes. He's leaving tomorrow. And that's when I ran into him.
He says he has seen a lot of water. Finally, though, it's subsiding again. He tried to get out and take a walk today to see some of the sites he hasn't been able to. And he says he even saw some of that water creep into his hotel room, even though the hotel itself did not flood.
MICHAEL PHELAND: Although, mind you, we did have to change rooms 'cause the water was coming up on the sixth floor through the carpet, up on the sixth floor. Don't ask me how that happens, but it did.
KELLY: Just in the few seconds we have left, Victoria - this storm is not over yet. How's the city getting ready for what's coming next?
HANSEN: Yeah, that's right. Tropical Storm Debby is coming ashore somewhere north of here, and we're still getting the outer bands of that. Let's not forget, this is a very slow-moving storm. So downtown, there were police out. They're monitoring the roads, putting up a barricade in those places where it's starting to flood again.
And, of course, North Carolina is already prepping for the same heavy rain that we've been getting. And this storm will move into the mid-Atlantic, as well, through Saturday morning. So Debby is not done with us yet.
KELLY: Victoria Hansen with South Carolina Public Radio in Charleston. Thanks.
HANSEN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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