By Rhea Rose Abraham, Rajveer Pardesi and Marianna Parraga
Oct 10 (Reuters) – Four people died after Hurricane Isaias made landfall early on Saturday, and about 670,000 residents in Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi were still without power as the storm weakened to a post-tropical cyclone, according to local authorities and electricity monitoring services.
Two of the deaths resulted from trees falling on homes, according to local media and authorities.
Authorities in Florida had received no search and rescue requests shortly after landfall in a sign of limited impact, Governor Ron DeSantis said. But hazardous conditions remained and storm surges, flash flooding, damaging winds and a risk of tornadoes across parts of the US Southeast were expected, the National Hurricane Center said.
The tornado threat is expected to continue on Saturday across parts of the Florida Panhandle, Georgia and the Carolinas, the NHC said.
In Florida, power restoration was marked as a priority, authorities said, while highways, bridges and airports were reopening, and teams were assessing the damage.
“They’re going to make assessments this morning, and I think that’ll give us a good sense about the future for the rapidity of the power restoration,” DeSantis told a press conference in Tallahassee. Some 16,000 utility linemen had prepared to respond to the storm, he said.
About 420,000 customers in Florida, 190,000 in Alabama, 43,000 in Georgia and 17,000 in Mississippi had no power as of midday Saturday, according to tracking firm PowerOutage.us.
A separate storm on the Pacific Ocean, Rachel, was moving toward the coast of northern Baja California on Saturday, bringing wind gusts and increased tides, which left another 7,000 people without power in California.
Alabama’s emergency management agency said the downed trees and power lines made travel hazardous in Houston County, which is under a flash flood warning.
“Due to the impacts of Hurricane Isaias, all Houston County roads are closed until further notice,” it posted on X.
A category 2 hurricane when it hit Florida’s coast and the first of the 2026 Atlantic season, Isaias is expected to produce gusty winds well inland before weakening below gale force later on Saturday, the NHC said.
On Saturday, oil and gas producer Shell said it was beginning to redeploy personnel to its Mars, Olympus, Ursa, Vito and Appomattox assets in the Gulf, while Chevron was advancing efforts to redeploy staff to its platforms and seeking to restore full production. “Remobilization of crews will continue through Sunday,” it said.
Despite the progress, about 69% of oil output and 57% of natural gas production in the US Gulf of Mexico remained shut on Saturday, slightly down from Friday numbers, the Marine Minerals Administration said.
Some 113 production platforms representing 30% of the total remained evacuated, according to the agency.
President Donald Trump, asked about hurricane preparations on Friday, told reporters outside the White House that it was “under control.” The US Energy Department said on Saturday it authorized an emergency exchange of up to 4 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to address supply disruptions due to the hurricane.
Emergency declarations were approved in Florida and Alabama to ensure federal resources would be available to respond to Isaias, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said on X.
“There’s also a lot of hazards post-storm that people should be careful of, but so far, we’ve had a lot of assets in place that have not been called on,” DeSantis told FOX News early on Saturday.
In the coastal city of Pensacola, a lack of drinking water is a problem, the mayor said. Pensacola airport, Florida’s 10th largest, was damaged by the storm and is closed to commercial flights until further notice.
(Reporting by Rhea Rose Abraham and Rajveer Singh Pardesi in Bengaluru, and Mariannaa Parraga in Houston. Editing by Ann Saphir, Caitlin Webber and Andrea Ricci)
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