Two people died and about 800,000 residents of Florida, Alabama, and Georgia were without power after Hurricane Isaias made landfall on the mainland in the early hours of Saturday morning, weakening and transforming into a post-tropical cyclone, according to local authorities and power monitoring services.
Florida officials did not receive any search-and-rescue requests in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane’s arrival, which indicated a limited impact, Governor Ron DeSantis said. However, risk conditions persisted and were expected to bring storm surges, flash floods, destructive winds, and the risk of tornadoes in parts of the southeastern United States, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) reported.
The threat of tornadoes is expected to continue on Saturday in parts of Florida’s Panhandle, Georgia, and the Carolinas, the NHC said.
In Florida, power restoration was prioritized, authorities said, as roads, bridges and airports were being reopened and crews were evaluating the damage.
“They will conduct assessments this morning, and I think that will give us a good sense of how quickly the power will be restored,” DeSantis said at a news conference in Tallahassee. About 16,000 electric utility technicians were preparing to respond to the storm, he said.
More than 430,000 customers in Florida, more than 280,000 in Alabama and about 100,000 in Georgia were without power when the storm struck the coast, according to the monitoring firm PowerOutage.us.
In Alabama and Florida, two people died due to fallen trees, according to local media and authorities. The Alabama Emergency Management Agency said fallen trees and power lines made travel dangerous in Houston County, which is under a flash flood watch.
“Due to the impacts of Hurricane Isaias, all roads in Houston County are closed until further notice,” the agency said on X.
Isaias quickly weakened after making landfall on the Florida coast as a Category 2 hurricane, the first of the Atlantic season in 2026.
(Reporting by Rhea Rose Abraham and Rajveer Singh Pardesi in Bengaluru)
