Hurricane Isaias churned toward the Gulf Coast Friday with “life-threatening” Category 3 strength — as forecasters warned of powerful winds, flooding and possible tornadoes.
The record-setting storm was expected to make landfall near the Florida Panhandle Friday or early Saturday with “extremely dangerous” winds of up to 120 mph, the National Weather Service warned.
It was set to unleash up to nine feet of storm surge and 15 inches of rain, triggering “states of emergency” in coastal sections of Alabama, Florida and Georgia, forecasters said.
Isaias had reached 121 mph about 150 miles south of Pensacola on Friday afternoon, as forecasters warned residents — even outside the hurricane’s path — to prepare for the worst.
“Hurricane impacts like damaging winds, flooding rain, tornadoes, and storm surge will impact areas OUTSIDE of the hurricane forecast cone,” the National Weather Service said Friday.
Meanwhile, some residents along the Gulf Coast scrambled to board up buildings and install hurricane shutters as the storm approached Friday.
Isaias was expected to swirl ashore between Mobile Bay on the Alabama coast and the city of Destin in the Florida Panhandle — then move north toward Atlanta, Ga., where it could dump up to eight inches of rain, forecasters said.
Once the hurricane hits land, the storm is expected to weaken until it is downgraded to a tropical storm by Saturday afternoon, according to the National Hurricane Center said.
Several counties announced mandatory evacuations, while Florida and Alabama declared states of emergency in dozens of counties.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also warned residents to be ready for power outages, flooding and gas shortages.
“When the water’s rising and things are happening, it’s a very, very difficult conundrum and you do not want to be caught in that,” he said.
Isaias is the first hurricane of the Atlantic storm season in history to form this late, according to meteorologists.
With Post wires
