Hurricane Isaias kills 4, leaves 700K without power across Southeast

Hurricane Isaias made landfall near Destin, Florida, on Friday night as a Category 2 storm with maximum sustained winds of 105 miles per hour. Within hours, it had weakened to a post-tropical cyclone, but the damage was already spreading across the northern Gulf Coast and inland through Alabama and Georgia. By Saturday morning, more than 700,000 customers had lost power across the Southeast, and at least four people were dead.

The storm's most immediate toll came from falling trees. In Escambia County, Florida, a woman died when a tree crashed through her home during the height of the winds. In Birmingham, Alabama, another person was killed in the Huffman area when a tree fell on their house. A second death in Barbour County, Alabama, was confirmed by Gov. Kay Ivey's office, though circumstances were not immediately disclosed. In Gulf Breeze, Florida, Jayme Mitich and her 13-year-old daughter, Jeweliana Jackson, huddled beneath a mattress as the wind tore off part of their roof. Mitich later stood in her soaked living room, surrounded by broken beams and insulation, and said simply: "It's going to be OK. No matter what, we're going to make it."

The physical destruction was widespread and specific. Milton High School's gymnasium was destroyed, its debris scattered across the campus. At least two gas stations had their roofs peeled away by the wind. In neighborhoods well away from the coastline, nearly every corner showed either a tree down or tangled in a power line, making roads impassable. In Navarre, Florida, Tamara Stamm and Danielle Pagan combined their families for the night so all nine children could be together after their homes were damaged. Sean Palamarczuk, co-owner of the Angry Tuna Seafood Company in Panama City, surveyed his restaurant and estimated damage between $50,000 and $75,000. "Just to come and see it all just mangled and shattered is a little bit depressing," he said, but he resolved to reopen and rebuild.

The power outages told their own story of scale. Florida had 422,357 customers without electricity, Alabama 200,930, Georgia 44,877, and smaller numbers across Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee. One man in Escambia County, Florida, died from carbon monoxide poisoning when he ran a generator in his closed garage. Four family members—ages 72, 24, 5, and 4—were hospitalized for non-life-threatening treatment from the same exposure. Gov. Ron DeSantis warned that the danger was far from over. "Although the center of the storm has moved out of Florida, the threat of flooding remains," he said Saturday. "Sometimes these things happen a day or two days after the storm goes through. So the flooding story is not over."

The National Hurricane Center forecast heavy rainfall across the region through the weekend. Parts of southern Alabama, the Florida Panhandle, Big Bend, and southwest Georgia could see up to 8 inches of rain, with localized totals reaching 15 inches. Much of the remainder of the Southeast was expected to receive 2 to 10 inches, with the Southern Appalachians and coastal Carolinas at particular risk for 10-inch totals. Flash, urban, and river flooding were all possible. A tornado risk persisted Saturday morning through the afternoon across parts of the eastern Florida Panhandle, Georgia, and the Carolinas. By Saturday evening, Isaias was located about 75 miles south of Nashville, moving northeast at 16 miles per hour with maximum sustained winds of 25 mph. It was expected to dissipate on Sunday when absorbed by another weather system.

Federal resources mobilized quickly. President Trump approved emergency declarations for Florida, Alabama, and Georgia, freeing up FEMA assistance to supplement state and local response efforts. The Energy Department authorized emergency exchanges of up to 4 million gallons of crude oil from the nation's strategic petroleum reserve—2 million barrels each for Exxon Mobil and BP America—to help maintain refinery operations and limit disruptions to fuel supplies. Thousands of linemen and utility crews had convoyed from San Destin and along the I-10 corridor to restore power in the hardest-hit communities. Gov. Ivey urged Alabamians to "hope for the best, prepare for the worst," and to heed local warnings as cleanup continued. The immediate crisis was passing, but the work of recovery had only begun.