Isaias Kills at Least 4 Across Florida and Alabama

Hurricane Isaias, the first hurricane of the 2026 Atlantic season, left at least four people dead and hundreds of thousands without power after slamming into the Florida Panhandle as a Category 2 storm Friday night and grinding inland across Alabama. The storm made landfall near Destin around 8:30 p.m. local time with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Two deaths were confirmed in Escambia County, Florida, and two in Alabama, as the weakening system carved a path of downed trees, flooded roads and damaged buildings across the Gulf Coast.

Two Deaths in the Panhandle

Both Florida deaths occurred in Escambia County, at the western edge of the Panhandle. Sheriff Chip Simmons said a woman was killed when a falling tree crashed into a home in the Burgess Road area; her husband was in the room but was not injured, NorthEscambia.com reported.

The second victim died after a generator was left running inside a closed garage, the sheriff’s office said. Four other family members—ages 72, 24, 5 and 4—were taken to a hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries.

Shortly before 9 p.m. Friday, a rescue team found a person pinned under a large tree that had collapsed into a home, according to Sgt. Melony Peterson of the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office. “The victim was inside the home when the tree collapsed,” Peterson told NPR.

Two More Killed in Alabama

In Alabama, a tree fell on a single-family home in Jefferson County, which includes Birmingham. “We did have a storm-related fatality overnight,” Jefferson County Emergency Management Agency Director Jim Coker said. “A tree did fall on the house… It was a single-family residence.”

A second Alabama death was attributed to a motor vehicle crash involving a downed tree in Barbour County, according to Josh Johnson of the state’s emergency management agency, as The Guardian reported.

Hundreds of Thousands Without Power

At its peak, more than 900,000 customers lost power across Florida, Alabama and Georgia, according to the tracking site PowerOutage.us. The outages receded through the weekend—to about 780,000 by late Saturday morning, roughly 550,000 by the afternoon, and about 440,000 by Saturday night.

In Florida, the worst-hit counties were Santa Rosa, Holmes, Washington and Walton, each of which reported more than 80 percent of residents without electricity, Governor Ron DeSantis said at a morning news conference. Some 16,000 utility workers were mobilized to restore service.

“Last night in the wee hours of the morning, those crews began working as early as 3 a.m.,” DeSantis said, adding that Interstate 10 and Route 98 were open by Saturday morning, along with all state bridges.

Widespread Damage Across the Coast

Hurricane-force winds tore the roof off a Pensacola hotel and damaged the city’s airport, while trees and power lines came down across the city, blocking roads. The storm flattened a boathouse in Destin and ripped away part of the facade of a high-rise in Panama City Beach. An apartment complex roof was blown off in Milton, and a storm-damaged gas station was reported in East Milton.

Isaias weakened to a post-tropical cyclone hours after landfall. By 5 a.m. Saturday its sustained winds had dropped to about 35 mph as the system moved through Alabama, and it was expected to dissipate on Sunday.

Even so, officials warned that the danger was far from over. “The flooding story is not over,” DeSantis said, cautioning that saturated ground and continued rainfall could trigger dangerous flooding a day or two after the storm passed. He also urged residents to avoid downed power lines and standing water—and never to run generators indoors.

Jared W. Perdue, secretary of the Florida Department of Transportation, added a blunt warning about driving through floodwater. “It does not have to be that deep, and it can wash away your car, it can wash away a human, it can become very dangerous very quickly,” he said.

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, who confirmed the two deaths in her state, said Isaias “cannot clear fast enough.”

A Storm of Record Proportions

The numbers behind Isaias underscored its unusual intensity. The strongest wind gust reached 117 mph just outside Pensacola Beach—an unusually powerful blast on the west side of the cyclone, resembling a phenomenon known as a “sting jet” that can develop as a hurricane transitions into an extratropical cyclone, according to the Florida Public Radio Emergency Network. The heaviest rainfall, 11.56 inches, fell in Mary Esther; combined with rain from a pre-existing frontal boundary, many locations saw 10 to 20 inches in total. More than 33 tornado warnings were issued from Florida through North Carolina.

The storm also marked a striking climate milestone. Forecasters had expected a quiet season, with a strong El Niño suppressing Atlantic activity; NOAA initially predicted three to six hurricanes, below the average of seven, and trimmed that estimate in August. None of the season’s eight previous named storms intensified beyond tropical storm status. Isaias instead formed in October and strengthened to 105 mph—making it one of the two latest-forming Atlantic hurricanes on record, tying a marker set on October 8, 1905.

Federal Response and What’s Next

President Donald Trump approved emergency declarations for Florida and Alabama ahead of landfall and allowed FEMA to direct resources to Georgia, where officials braced for possible tornadoes. The U.S. Energy Department announced it would release up to four million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as an emergency exchange to limit fuel-supply disruptions.

“With this emergency exchange, the Energy Department is acting swiftly to help maintain refinery operations, limit disruptions to fuel supplies, and ensure American families and businesses continue to have access to affordable, reliable, and secure energy,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier cautioned residents to be wary of contractors seeking to exploit storm victims. In Escambia County, a boil-water notice was issued for the entire Town of Jay water system, and the Town of Century declared a local state of emergency.

As cleanup begins, the focus now turns to restoring power—Florida Power & Light aims to restore service to 95 percent of customers by the end of the day Monday—and to the flooding risk that could linger well after Isaias has dissipated.