Hurricane Isaias Aftermath: Four Dead, Outages Hit Southeast

Hurricane Isaias roared ashore near Destin, Florida, late Friday night as a Category 2 storm with winds around 105 mph, and by Saturday the toll was coming into focus: four people dead and hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses without power across the Southeast. The storm weakened fast after landfall, slipping to a post-tropical cyclone with winds of about 35 mph as its center pushed north through Alabama, but it kept spinning up tornadoes, floods and downed power lines well inland.

The toll: four dead, communities dark

Two of the deaths were in Alabama, according to Governor Kay Ivey, who said one person was killed when a tree fell on a house; she did not release further details. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis said another person died when a tree fell on a house, and a second person was found dead in a garage with a generator running. "Don't run the generator inside, it's something that can be fatal," DeSantis said at a briefing, pointing to the danger of carbon monoxide. Local gusts near Destin reached 116 mph at landfall, tearing roofs and flooding neighborhoods along the Panhandle.

Five other people were hospitalized, and the toll could still change as crews reach the hardest-hit areas. In the Panhandle, floodwater swamped roads in Destin and Tiger Point, where trucks were left overturned in standing water and a gas station's front panel was torn off, according to photographs from the scene. The storm's reach extended well past the coast: scattered outages and downed trees were reported as far inland as central Alabama, where the post-tropical cyclone was still dropping heavy rain.

Power outages stretched across three states on Saturday afternoon. According to outage tracker PowerOutage.com, nearly 630,000 customers in Alabama, Florida and Georgia were without electricity, with Florida accounting for more than half of them. DeSantis said crews went out overnight to begin repairs. "You have to get the debris out of the way before the linemen can connect it," he said, describing the tangle of fallen trees and lines across the region. A Wall Street Journal report on the storm confirmed the death toll and the scale of the outages. In Escambia County alone, more than one hundred thousand customers were without power, according to weather.com, after the storm shredded roofs and collapsed gas stations across the Pensacola area. Georgia and the Carolinas also braced for more heavy rain as the system kept grinding inland.

What comes next for the storm and the recovery

The National Hurricane Center said the center of Post-Tropical Cyclone Isaias was moving north over Alabama on Saturday and was expected to reach the Tennessee Valley later in the day, turning northeast on Sunday. Forecasters warned of up to 8 inches of rain across southern Alabama, the Florida Panhandle and southwest Georgia, with river flooding possible in the western Panhandle as rivers crest and then recede. The tornado threat also lingered: at least two tornadoes were confirmed in Georgia's Savannah River valley, and a spotter confirmed another tornado near Allendale, South Carolina.

Recovery work began almost immediately. DeSantis said the state had received no search and rescue requests in the hours after landfall, an early sign the damage, while widespread, was not worse. Highways, bridges and airports were reopening, and Tallahassee International Airport was serving as a staging area for National Guard aircraft and emergency equipment. Public schools in Florida's Escambia and Santa Rosa counties will stay closed Monday, Oct. 12, while officials assess the damage to campuses.

Isaias was the first hurricane of the 2026 Atlantic season to make landfall in the United States, breaking a two-year drought that stretched back to Hurricane Milton in October 2024. USA Today reported that the center passed roughly 50 miles from Pensacola, where crews were documenting shredded roofs and collapsed gas stations. USA Today's live updates tracked the storm's push into Alabama. With flood watches still in effect across parts of the Southeast, officials urged residents to stay clear of downed lines and flooded roads while cleanup continues.