The National Weather Service cancelled the tropical storm warning that included Bulloch, Candler and Evans counties by 5:15 p.m. Tuesday, but a flash flood watch including Bulloch and a larger number of neighboring counties was scheduled to remain in effect through Friday morning.

Heavy rain from Monday afternoon until the earlier hours of Tuesday from Tropical Storm Debby, the former hurricane, turned creeks into torrents and caused pond dams to burst, leaving Bulloch County not just with the typical muddy mess on its dirt roads, but with serious damage to some paved ones.

So, Bulloch County Emergency Management Director Corey Kemp wasn't ready to call off Monday's "shelter in place" instructions just yet when phoned late Tuesday afternoon. Although water that washed across roads had subsided in places, the overall road situation was not improved, Kemp said, and a gentler rain was still falling.

"We have a lot of road closures that we're dealing with," he said. "We know we have a lot of big roads that have been washed out, even paved roads. We're going to have more dirt roads damaged that we haven't had a chance to really check yet. … So the main thing is stay home still, don't drive on the roads. Turn around, don't drown."

A statement on the "Bulloch County Public Safety and EMA" page on Facebook around 9 a.m. Tuesday morning gave an estimate of 40 to 50 roads affected, with water over them at some point, five trees fallen on houses and approximately 10 power lines down, with about 150 to 200 Georgia Power and Excelsior EMC customers without power. 

But Georgia Power and Excelsior EMC had done a good job restoring power and keeping it on, Kemp said at the end of the day.

Georgia Power's online outage map counted fewer than 10 Bulloch County customer outages by mid-afternoon Tuesday. As of 8 p.m., Excelsior's map showed 29 customers with outages in the Portal area, 30 between Statesboro and Register and 21 and 63 in different areas of the southeastern end of the county.

Tree falls on car

Kemp also said he had not heard of "any more trauma-related accidents" after one Monday evening, only "minor accidents."

In the Monday evening accident, a tree fell on a vehicle in motion on Cypress Lake Road at Courtney Way. The Georgia State Patrol was called to the single-vehicle crash at 6:39 p.m.

"A blue Mercury Mariner was traveling west on Cypress Lake Road when a tree fell from the shoulder, landing on top of the Mariner and trapping the driver inside," GSP Post 45-Statesboro Secretary Ginger Robbins summarized.

Power lines also fell onto the roadway and vehicle, but first responders were able to extract the driver, who was transported to East Georgia Regional Medical Center with "life-threatening injuries," according to the State Patrol's preliminary information. The road remained closed for about two and a half hours to remove the tree and power lines.

Pond dam breach

Water, not wind or falling trees, led to another high-profile, storm-related emergency.

County officials issued an urgent notice to area residents shortly before 11 a.m. Tuesday that both dams on Simmons Pond, the large, private recreational pond and historical mill pond on Georgia Highway 46 east of Nevils, had breached.

"All residents near the pond or downstream are STRONGLY ENCOURAGED to seek shelter away from this area — and avoid this portion of Hwy 46 — as the water is expected to rise further before it begins to drop," stated the notice on Facebook.

With Kemp busy in the field, county commissioners Communications Director Dal Cannady returned a call seeking more information.

"We're asking folks to get out of that area," Cannady said. "Technically it's not mandatory, but we're strongly asking people to evacuate."

He noted that the county could not close Highway 46 where it is a state route. But the portion called Old Highway 46 is now a county-maintained road, and Bulloch County's road crews and Sheriff's Office personnel were busy with a growing list of county road closures, a version of which appears farther below.

As Statesboro Herald photojournalist Scott Bryant reported from the scene, the earthen dam that protects Highway 46 from Simmons Pond was breached and water was flowing into Reed Branch. 

After motorists ignored signs not to cross the Highway 46 bridge that spans Reed Branch off Simmons Pond, Mitch Johnson with Bulloch County Public Works said the county brought in dump trucks of sand to effectively block the bridge on both sides of Highway 46 so no vehicles could cross the bridge in either direction.

Johnson said the county is concerned that as more rain falls Tuesday afternoon, a tree that fell in the spillway may actually be swept into the bridge and possibly cause significant damage.

Meanwhile, also in the southeastern area of the county, a short section of Nevils-Denmark Road, first photographed with the edge of its pavement crumbling as water rushed underneath, entirely collapsed, leaving a road-wide gap in the pavement and substrate. A county crew also piled dirt there to keep vehicles away.

Over 9" in a day

This came as Tropical Storm Debby hovered along the Atlantic coast after dumping rains predicted to be "historic" in volume while crossing northern Florida and southern Georgia from the Gulf. 

As of 10:25 a.m. Tuesday, a National Weather Service gauge on Black Creek near Blitchton had recorded 9.24 inches of rain in 24 hours. A similar gauge near Oliver on the Ogeechee River recorded 6.63 inches in the 24 hours ending 10:30 a.m.

"We're getting inundated with road closures," Cannady said. "What we've been trying to do is receive the advisories from people. … Either send us a direct message on the Public Safety EMA Facebook page or call 911."

Posting on other county threads may result in the county's crew leaders missing the messages, he said. The direct message on Facebook or message left with a 911 dispatcher should include the road name and an intersection or some other locator of where the trouble is on that road.

Damaged roads list

Here, updated from an even earlier list, is the beginning of the Bulloch County Sheriff's Office's annotated list of closed and damaged roads as of about 1 p.m. Tuesday: Highway 46 at Simmons Pond, "This area has been completely flooded;" Red Hill Church Road, "washed out;" Old Donaldson School Road, "washed out;" Mill Branch at Red Hill Church, "washed out;" Highway 67 at Frances Road, "Dam is getting close to bursting;" MP Martin Road, "washed out;" Jim Futch Road at Lawrence Road, "impassable for sedans; 4WD trucks are able to make it;" Burkhalter Road at Williams Road, "needs to be closed;" Arcola Road from Lee Road to Black Creek Church Road, "closed due to a burst dam;" Old King at Kennedy Pond, "washed out;" Foster Williams Road at 46, "washed out;" McElveen Kendrick Road, "impassable for sedans …;" Eugene Deal Road at Westside Road, "washed out;" Aden Lanier, "washed out;" W Rushing Road at Dink Station, "needs to be closed;" Old River Road from C Scott to Dyches, "needs to be closed;" Bella Terra at Emit Grove, "closed;" Golf Club Road at Burkhalter and Gold Club at Sinkhole, "closed"; Williams Landing, "needs to be closed; all roads to Williams Landing are also washed out;" Macedonia Road, "needs to be closed;" Seed Tick Road at Coursey Road and Seed Tick at Ash Branch Road, "washed out;" Nevils-Groveland at Martin Road, "washed out;" Metts Road at Mallard Pond Road, "needs to be closed;" and Hickory Knob, "needs to be closed."

At that time, the BCSO reported, almost all of Sinkhole Road had been closed "due to it being completely under water."

The county ran out of "road closed" barriers and started using Sheriff's Office caution tape to mark closures.

Fully deployed

Bulloch has the most unpaved roads of any county in Georgia, somewhere between 600 and 700 miles of them, Dink Butler, the county's Public Works Division director, noted Monday when interviewed about preparations for the storm.

After having at least four small crews scheduled to respond to emergencies Monday night, with others on-call if needed, the division deployed its full available workforce Tuesday for repairs and cleanup. Butler said there would be probably 30 Public Works crews at work. Those crews can include three to six workers each, including inmates from Bulloch County Correctional Institution.

County staff will post further notices on the Facebook page, and local officials also send out emergency alerts electronically via CodeRed, a service to which Bulloch County and the city of Statesboro subscribe and make available to the public. Find the signup page here.