PENSACOLA, Fla. — Cleanup and power restoration were under way across the Florida Panhandle on Sunday, two days after Hurricane Isaias came ashore near Destin and left at least four people dead in Florida and Alabama, the Associated Press reported.
Key facts
- Isaias made landfall at 8:30 p.m. CDT Friday near Destin, Fla., as a 90-knot hurricane with 105 mph winds, the National Hurricane Center said in its Discussion 14.
- At least four deaths have been linked to the storm — two in Escambia County, Fla., one in Birmingham, Ala., and one in Barbour County, Ala. — according to the Associated Press and the Alabama Emergency Management Agency.
- About 408,000 customer accounts remained without power across Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi as of about 8 a.m. CDT Sunday, per PowerOutage.us figures reported by The Watchers.
- The Weather Prediction Center's final advisory, issued at 10 a.m. CDT Sunday, placed the post-tropical low over Kentucky with 25 mph winds, moving east-northeast at 22 mph.
- Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency Oct. 6 for 25 Florida counties and expanded it Oct. 7 to 27, adding Citrus and Levy counties under Executive Order 26-211, according to the governor's office.
What the storm did
Gusts reached 116 mph near Santa Rosa Sound and 100 mph near Pensacola, and water levels at Panama City Beach rose about 5.6 feet above the average high tide, according to a state update on the governor's response. The wind blew the roof off a Pensacola hotel, flattened a boathouse in Destin and tore part of the facade off a high-rise in Panama City Beach, the AP reported. Pensacola's mayor said the city's airport took some damage.
In Escambia County, a woman was killed when a tree fell on her home, and a man died of carbon monoxide fumes from a generator running in his garage, Sheriff Chip Simmons said, per the AP. Four of the man's family members, ages 4 to 72, were treated and were expected to survive. In Alabama, a tree fell on a home in Birmingham's Huffman area, killing one person, and a second person died in a vehicle crash involving a downed tree in Barbour County, according to the Alabama Emergency Management Agency.
Power restoration
Nearly 900,000 customers lost power in the first hours after landfall, mostly in Florida and Alabama, the AP reported. More than 16,000 linemen and restoration workers had been positioned in Florida before the storm, according to state officials. Florida Power & Light said it had restored more than 98,000 customers by early Sunday and expects 95% of affected customers who can safely accept power to be restored by the end of Monday, FOX Weather reported. As of 5 a.m. CDT Sunday, 105,770 customers in Escambia County alone were still without power, the Pensacola News Journal reported.
The recovery
President Donald Trump approved federal emergency declarations for Florida and Alabama on Friday night, authorizing FEMA to coordinate federal disaster relief in both states, the Washington Examiner reported. Florida deployed nearly 400 State Guard soldiers for route clearance, damage assessments, supply distribution and search-and-rescue support, state officials said. In Escambia County, officials handed out water and tarps at three sites on Sunday, with boil-water notices in effect, and Pensacola International Airport resumed normal operations Sunday morning, the News Journal reported.
What is left of the storm
The Weather Prediction Center said the post-tropical low would bring 1 to 3 more inches of rain Sunday across the central Appalachians into the Mid-Atlantic, with flood watches in effect for parts of the Appalachians and a couple of tornadoes possible in the Virginia and North Carolina Piedmont and coastal plain. The low is expected to dissipate over West Virginia this evening, per the center's final advisory. Its center crossed the Ohio Valley through Kentucky on Sunday morning, south of Indiana.
Photo credit
¹ Hero: Hurricane Isaias over the Gulf of Mexico, 1 a.m. CDT Oct. 8, 2026, NOAA GOES-19 / NASA EOSDIS Worldview, composite by Tkin VN014, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain. ² Inline: Levy Bay Landing, Wakulla County, Florida, during the passage of Hurricane Isaias, Oct. 9, 2026, photo by The Bushranger, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. ³ Inline: Birmingham, Alabama, after Isaias, Oct. 10, 2026, photo by T.K. Mc, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.