LUMBERTON — City officials say that Tropical Storm Debby resulted in some flash flooding through the streets in parts of Lumberton, with the Lumber River expected to crest early Friday morning, and that no remaining city utility customers are without power as of Thursday afternoon.

The heavy rain that Debby dropped on the area resulted in standing water in areas including parts of Linkhaw Road, Hillcrest Drive, Highland Avenue and North Walnut Street, all in the northern part of the city. These areas have had persistent flash flooding issues historically in periods of intense rain.

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“Last night was, pretty intense rain came through, and we had a lot of flash flooding from that intense rain, in many of the same spots that we have recurring flash flooding,” said Rob Armstrong, the City of Lumberton’s public works director.

The water largely subsided in those locations throughout the day Thursday. While a chance of additional rain remains on the back end of the storm, Armstrong does not anticipate any additional flash flooding issues as the rain is not expected to be as heavy as what fell in the area late Wednesday and early Thursday.

The city saw no issues with storm drainage in the Tanglewood area surrounding UNC Health Southeastern — a notable improvement from the significant flooding in that area during hurricanes Matthew, in 2016, and Florence, in 2018. This was the first major storm to hit Lumberton since the completion of the Tanglewood Drainage Project, which sought to improve stormwater drainage in that community by upgrading drainage piping systems and was completed in 2023.

“The large drainage project that we called the Tanglewood Project that was designed to relieve the hospital seemed to perform very well,” Armstrong said. “Our observation was at the height of the storm last night, we didn’t really have any kind of impacts there at the hospital.”

The National Weather Service forecasts for the Lumber River to crest at just over 19 feet at 2 a.m. Friday. Anything above 19 feet is considered as major flood stage, but Armstrong does not anticipate widespread flooding concerns on the scale of previous weather events including hurricanes Matthew and Florence.

By comparison, crests during hurricanes Matthew and Florence were 28 and 26 feet, Armstrong said, though those figures are considered unofficial since river gauges were underwater.

A Hesco barrier was temporarily constructed this week to add on to the semi-permanent earthen berm located on VFW Road where the CSX railway crosses underneath Interstate 95, just south of the Lumber River and just north of Exit 17. Water flowed through that opening into areas of West Lumberton during previous storms, but a crest that is anticipated to be lower than previous storms and the existence of the barrier has left the city confident that any flooding will be far less than what was seen in Matthew and Florence. The vast majority of residents who could potentially be affected by a river flooding event in western parts of the city will be protected by the barrier, with little to no residency to the west between the river and I-95.

“(A 19-foot crest) is not a danger area for the berm, and not really in other parts of town either, like Mayfair and other places should not be impacted by that,” Armstrong said. “But people need to make their own decisions about how to handle that level of water. And it’s not an exact science, timing-wise and river-crest-height-wise, so we are going to be cautious about this.”

The forecasted river crest, as predicted by the National Weather Service, has gradually gotten lower throughout the week. Even if river levels peak at 20 or 22 feet, Armstrong said, the Hesco barrier “should perform well.” The city will also consult with the National Weather Service to see if there is any chance of a secondary crest, as water flows downstream after rain from Debby in locations to the north of Robeson County.

While Armstrong wasn’t sure if or how many structures were damaged due to flooding Wednesday night into Thursday morning, he pointed out there are less structures potentially in harm’s way after many properties were bought out in the aftermath of previous storms.

“Some of the buyouts that took place in the Highland area along the Meadow Branch, obviously those homes are gone now so they were not impacted last night,” Armstrong said. “So you have less structures that were impacted.”

On the occasion of Debby’s impact, Armstrong told The Robesonian that there are ongoing efforts for flood mitigation in the city.

“The places that continue to flood, in some of those areas we have scheduled projects in the works, on Linkhaw (Road), and some other longer-term conceptual projects on the Five Mile (Branch) that will help The Oaks.”

The floodgate that is to be built under Interstate 95, near the location of the current temporary barrier, is also nearing construction. All necessary state permits are acquired, Armstrong said, and design is completed, with bidding for the project to be completed by the end of the year; the project is just “kind of waiting on our spot” in queue as part of the broader project to widen and elevate I-95.

As Debby caused some street flooding in Lumberton, the city’s power grid saw about 1,000 customers lose power for a few hours Wednesday evening into early Thursday morning, according to Lumberton Electric Utilities Director Greg Prevatte. But power was restored for all the city’s customers by mid-day Wednesday, he said, with most of the outages restored by 2 a.m.

“We still don’t know what (Thursday) holds, so we’re kind of fingers crossed hoping the winds stay where they’re at and we get no more water,” Prevatte said. “We probably had 1,000 out last night and we worked until about 2 (a.m.) this morning, got them back on, which was most of it, and then we’ve had a few scattered outages with trees down, and mostly that’s all. A couple of broken poles — not any main line poles, but some of our service poles — but other that it’s been really good.”

The primary outage, in northern parts of the city, was caused by a fallen tree limb which caused a tripped breaker, Prevatte said. Service would have been restored even faster, but it came during the heaviest of the rain so utility workers took longer to locate the fallen limb.

While flash flooding often results in dangerous situations for motorists who do not heed calls to stay off the roads, there was no significant increase in traffic accidents in Lumberton throughout Wednesday night and Thursday morning compared to a normal day, according to Major Tommy Barnes of the Lumberton Police Department. Department operations continued smoothly throughout the storm, he said.