Tropical Storm Sally downed trees, flooded streets and homes, and knocked out power, reportedly killing one person, as the former hurricane on Wednesday pounded the US southeast with torrential rain.
Sally made landfall overnight near Gulf Shores, Alabama, along the border with Florida as a Category 2 hurricane.
Slow-moving Sally, which was subsequently downgraded to a tropical storm, then lingered over parts of southern Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, where it caused severe flooding with copious amounts of rain, the US National Hurricane Center said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“Catastrophic and life-threatening flooding continues over portions of the Florida Panhandle and southern Alabama,” the center said.
The news site AL.com reported one fatality in the coastal town of Orange Beach, Alabama, but Mayor Tony Kennon said he had no further details.
Some of the worst reported flooding occurred about 50km east in Pensacola, Florida, which has a population of about 52,000.
Downtown streets resembled lakes with cars submerged to the tops of their wheels and wind gusts whipping up whitecaps on the water.
“Flooded roadways and intersections, along with hazardous debris in roadways [locations] have become too numerous to list,” the Pensacola police wrote on Twitter. “Please stay off roadways now.”
Northwest Florida residents were expecting rain and wind, but were largely caught off guard when Sally veered sharply east and came in for a direct hit.
People were left with no time to gather food or water, let alone cover windows or place sandbags in front of doors.
Pensacola resident Jeff Gardner said his family was “surprised that we found ourselves inside the hurricane.”
“You just sit there wondering if, you know, your house is about to start to be ripped apart” the 47-year-old said.
Although his home was not destroyed, he said that there “was just a constant rush of wind the whole night.”
The new Three Mile Bridge over Pensacola Bay was massively damaged with a section missing, and had to be closed.
At 8pm, Sally had maximum sustained winds of 75km per hour, the center said.
It also warned that “a few tornadoes” could occur in parts of northern Florida and southern Georgia, as Sally crawled toward the northeast.
The storm was expected to weaken as it moved further inland and become a tropical depression overnight on Wednesday to yesterday.
More than 515,000 homes and businesses in Alabama and Florida have lost power, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us.
David Triana, 57, of Navarre, Florida, near Pensacola, said that he and his neighbors did not board up their homes because they did not expect the trajectory of the storm to shift so much to the east or for it to be so strong.
“Nobody was prepared for a Cat 2,” said Triana, whose home escaped without any damage. “The forecasts for the cone and the strength of the storm did not indicate that it would hit us so hard.”
Sally hit Gulf Shores, about 56km west of Pensacola, with winds of about 169km per hour, the center said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese