Isaias kills two, leaves 800,000 without power as flood threat lingers Saturday
The storm came ashore near Destin, Florida, on Friday night as a Category 2 hurricane with 105 mph winds, then weakened to a post-tropical cyclone by morning. Gov. Ron DeSantis warned Saturday that the flooding story is not over.
NEW ORLEANS: Hurricane Isaias killed at least two people and left about 800,000 customers without power, mostly in Florida and Alabama, on Saturday, after making landfall near Destin, Florida, on Friday night as a Category 2 hurricane with 105 mph winds.
In Escambia County, Florida, Sheriff Chip Simmons said a woman died after a tree fell on her home. In Birmingham's Huffman area, a second person died when a tree fell onto a home on Monterey Drive early Saturday; Birmingham Fire and Rescue crews responded around 5:20 a.m. to reports of people trapped inside, according to Jefferson County Emergency Management Agency Director Jim Coker.
By 5 a.m. Saturday the system had weakened to a post-tropical cyclone over Alabama, the National Hurricane Center said. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned that flooding remained a concern, with 4 to 8 inches of rain forecast across the Florida Panhandle and Big Bend through the weekend. "Although the center of the storm has moved out of Florida, the threat of flooding remains," DeSantis said Saturday.
About 448,000 Florida utility accounts were still without electricity Saturday morning, DeSantis said, as more than 16,000 linemen and restoration personnel began work around 3 a.m. Nearly 900,000 homes and businesses across Florida, Alabama and Georgia were without power Saturday morning, according to PowerOutage.us. All state-owned bridges had reopened by 6 a.m., along with Interstate 10 and U.S. 98, though crews were still clearing debris from smaller roads.
Forecasters said the storm would move into the Tennessee Valley and then the mid-Atlantic on Sunday, carrying the threat of flash flooding and tornadoes across the Southeast. Robbie Berg, a warning coordination meteorologist with the National Hurricane Center in Miami, said high wind warnings remained for portions of the Southeast and warned of significant flash flooding over the next couple of days. "The risk of flooding is still high," DeSantis said Saturday morning.
None to date. The Tribune corrects errors promptly and transparently. Read our corrections policy.
