United States: Hurricane Isaias peeled off hotel and condominium rooftops and facades along Florida's Panhandle before moving north on Saturday, bringing torrential rain and the threat of flash floods and tornadoes across the southeastern United States.
At least four deaths were linked to the storm, including two people killed when trees fell on homes in Florida and Alabama. Nearly 700,000 customers were without power by midday, while forecasters warned that flooding could extend into the southern Appalachians.
Isaias made landfall as a Category 2 hurricane on Friday near Destin, Florida, a popular Gulf Coast holiday destination known for its high-rise buildings and tourist shops. The storm weakened overnight and was downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone but remained dangerous.
“The risk of flooding is still high,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said on Saturday. “Sometimes these things happen a day or two days after the storm goes through. So the flooding story is not over.”
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Despite warnings of life-threatening storm surges ahead of the storm, several major coastal routes were open by daybreak on Saturday and free of the fallen trees and power lines typically seen after major hurricanes.
Scattered damage across the Gulf Coast
Hurricane-force winds in Florida's Panhandle blew the roof off a hotel in Pensacola. The city's mayor said the airport “took some damage”. The storm flattened a boathouse in Destin and ripped off part of the facade of a high-rise building in Panama City Beach.
Crews across Florida's western Panhandle worked on Saturday to clear fallen trees and storm debris after Isaias damaged homes, crushed vehicles and disrupted communities. In Pensacola, massive trees toppled onto homes, while one vehicle was left crushed beneath a fallen tree. Drone footage showed workers removing branches and debris from damaged rooftops and neighbourhoods littered with fallen trees.
A worker in a condominium parking lot swept up piles of insulation and pieces of metal from a damaged building, while nearby residents put back beach chairs that had been tossed about by the winds.
In Florida, Escambia County Sheriff Chip Simmons said there were two storm-related deaths. A woman was killed when a tree fell on her home, while a man died from carbon monoxide fumes emitted by a generator running in his garage. Four members of the man's family, aged between four and 72, were treated but expected to survive, the sheriff said.
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Nearby in Gulf Breeze, Jayme Mitich wiped away tears on Saturday as she surveyed the damage to her apartment. Her living room was soaked, while insulation and broken beams lay across her laundry room.
Mitich and her 13-year-old daughter, Jeweliana Jackson, hid beneath a mattress minutes before the storm tore off part of their roof.
“The noise got so loud, and I just kept hearing things break and crash into everything,” Mitich said.
The rest of their apartment complex was littered with roof shingles and broken beams from a wooden fence. Nearby, winds uprooted trees and flipped a truck onto its side.
“It's going to be OK,” Mitich said. “No matter what, we're going to make it.”
Elsewhere in the region, storm damage was evident in Gulf Breeze, where a Chevron petrol station was damaged and a large truck was seen on its side in floodwater outside a shopping complex. Drone footage also showed extensive damage to a Shell petrol station. Along Pensacola Beach, aerial footage captured damage to waterfront property.
Authorities in Florida had received no search-and-rescue requests shortly after landfall, which DeSantis described as a sign of limited impact. However, he warned residents of possible flooding in the coming days as swollen rivers continued to rise.
Isaias hits Alabama with devastating winds
Isaias, the first hurricane of the 2026 Atlantic season, moved farther into Alabama with tropical-force winds overnight.
One person died when a tree fell on a house in Birmingham, said Cory Moon, the city's fire chief. Another person was rescued from the house and treated at the scene, he said.
A second storm-related death in Alabama was attributed to a motor vehicle crash involving a fallen tree in Barbour County, said Josh Johnson of the state's emergency management agency.
Along Alabama's Gulf Coast, authorities in Mobile reported fallen trees and power lines, as well as numerous road closures.
Maranie Adams, who rode out the storm with her husband, two adult sons and their chickens in Gulf Shores, Alabama, said the winds rocked their home but that the impact was nothing like Hurricane Sally, which left 2 feet (0.6 metres) of water beneath their elevated house.
“We have a few limbs down, some leaves everywhere, but we're very spared. So, everything's open on the island today. Everything's good,” Adams said. “I feel very much more relieved today.”
Wind and rain still threaten the Southeast
The US Department of Energy on Saturday announced that it had authorised emergency exchanges of up to 4 million gallons of crude oil from the country's strategic petroleum reserve to address supply disruptions caused by the storm.
The Atlantic hurricane season had been unusually quiet, and Isaias was the first hurricane to hit the eastern United States since 2024.
The National Hurricane Center said flood watches remained in effect for parts of the southeastern United States and the southern Appalachians.
Parts of Georgia and the Carolinas could receive up to 10 inches of rain, although totals were expected to be between 3 and 6 inches. The storm was expected to move into the Tennessee Valley and then the mid-Atlantic region on Sunday.
Isaias was expected to bring gusty winds well inland before weakening below gale force later on Saturday, the National Hurricane Center said.
Officials at Charlotte Motor Speedway announced that Saturday's Blue Cross NC 300 had been postponed until Sunday night because of the forecast of inclement weather.
(With inputs from Reuters and AP via PTI)
