ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Catfish were spotted swimming in driveways and yards of Florida homes before Category 1 Hurricane Debby made landfall.
Joanna Mack and her husband were surprised to see two catfish swimming in the road in front of their Pinellas Park home on Sunday.
The couple believe the fish was probably washed away from a nearby pond by heavy rains.
“We’ve lived here for 10 years and this is the first time we’ve seen anything like this,” Joanna Mack said.
Using shovels and fishing poles, the couple drove the fish into storm drains and deeper water.
“After the rain stopped, we went out and found the fish and put them back where they came from,” said Mack, who believes the fish came from a pond near her home.
Dan Sciarretta posted footage to social media of the catfish struggling under shallow flood waters outside his St. Petersburg home.
“When the road turns into a river, catfish appear in my driveway.” He said in X.
The National Hurricane Center upgraded Debby to a Category 1 hurricane on Sunday evening.
The hurricane made landfall Monday morning near Steinhatchee, about 70 miles southeast of Tallahassee, with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (about 132 kph).
The landfall was just 15 miles from where Hurricane Idalia made landfall in Keaton Beach a year earlier.
Debby had already dumped up to a foot of rain on some areas of Southwest Florida as the storm slowly began to move toward the Southeast coast.
Debby weakened to a tropical storm by Monday morning and is currently moving through Georgia and the Carolinas.
Life-threatening flooding will continue Tuesday, especially in eastern South Carolina, as the center of Debby slowly slides off the Georgia coast and back out to sea.
Starting Friday, the storm will finally move north, bringing heavy rains into the Northeast, according to the FOX Forecast Center.
Localized severe flooding is possible from the Carolinas to Maine on Friday and Saturday.
