Updated September 28, 2025 at 9:36 AM PDT
Parts of the southeastern United States are bracing for the impacts of a potential tropical storm, just one year after Hurricane Helene tore through the region leaving casualties and calamity in its wake.
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster put residents under a state of emergency in preparation for Tropical Depression 9, which is expected to impact parts of the East Coast starting early this week.
"While the storm's arrival, speed, and intensity remain hard to predict, we do know that it will bring significant wind, heavy rainfall, and flooding across the ENTIRE state of South Carolina," McMaster said in a statement Friday.
"We have seen this before. Now is the time to start paying attention to forecasts, updates, and alerts from official sources and begin making preparations," he said.
The storm system is currently tracking across parts of the Caribbean, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC), and is expected to affect eastern Cuba, Jamaica, the Bahamas and Hispaniola — which includes the Dominican Republic and Haiti — through the weekend as it intensifies.
Parts of the central and northwestern Bahamas were already experiencing moderate to heavy rainfall Sunday morning, with a storm surge as high as three feet expected to rise later in the day and into the evening, according to the Bahamas Department of Meteorology.
Impacts on the U.S.
The storm system is set to intensify before it reaches the U.S., forecasters warned. The National Hurricane Center said it expects Tropical Depression 9 to become a tropical storm by Sunday and strengthen into a hurricane by late Monday or Tuesday.
The National Hurricane Center said areas of central Florida along the East Coast could experience tropical storm conditions beginning on Monday. Parts of multiple Florida counties were under a tropical storm watch late Sunday morning.
Further up the coast, Georgia and the Carolinas were also preparing for harsh conditions. "Heavy rainfall across the coastal Carolinas could cause flash, urban, and river flooding into Wednesday morning," the agency said Sunday morning. Cities including Savannah, Ga., and Charleston, S.C., were distributing sandbags to residents to prepare for the possibility of flooding.
The risk of strong wind impacts through the southeastern U.S. was dropping, the NHC said, but the storm could cause "dangerous marine conditions and rip currents" along much of the East Coast early this week.
The southeastern United States has thus far been spared the brunt of the year's Atlantic hurricane season.
The region had been repeatedly battered by years of intense storm seasons, including last year's devastating Hurricane Helene, which was the second severe hurricane of the year and laid to waste entire towns as it ripped across the coast.
Hurricanes Gabrielle and Humberto have formed over the ocean but are not considered threats to the United States.
Hurricanes have become more severe over the years, as climate change make storms stronger and more frequent. Hotter ocean temperatures breed bigger, more intense storms, which in turn can cause more severe flooding, infrastructure damage and loss of life.
Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which savaged New Orleans and much of the Gulf region, led to a push to better understand how and why these storms occur, and what agencies could do to better prepare.
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