Hurricane Sally brings ‘catastrophic’ floods to Gulf Coast
HURRICANE Sally dumped torrential amounts of rain on the US Gulf Coast on yesterday and threatened “historic and catastrophic” flooding in parts of Alabama and Florida.
It made landfall as a category 2 hurricane overnight and was lingering over Alabama and the Florida. Residents faced power cuts, downed trees, and flooded streets and homes.
The Miami-based National Hurricane Center said some isolated pockets could receive “historic and catastrophic flooding” with as much as 35 inches of rain. At 10am local time Sally had maximum sustained winds of 80mph, it said, and storm surge warnings were in effect for parts of the coast, along with tornado warnings.
Sally was moving at 5mph, the NHC said. It was expected to weaken as it moved further inland and become a tropical depression by this morning.
More than 500,000 homes and businesses in Alabama, Florida and Mississippi have lost power, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us. Some of the worst reported flooding was in the city of Pensacola, Florida, where residents posted pictures of streets resembling lakes with cars in water up to the tops of their wheels, and wind gusts whipping up the water.
“Flooded roadways and intersections, along with debris in roadways have become too numerous to list,” Pensacola police tweeted. A section of a new bridge over Pensacola Bay was missing, causing it to be shut down. The NHC said Sally made landfall in
Gulf Shores, Alabama, with maximum sustained winds of about 105mph. “We are looking at record flooding, perhaps breaking historic levels,” Kay Ivey, the Alabama governor, said.
On Fox News’s Fox & Friends television show, Donald Trump, the US president, compared Sally to Hurricane Laura, which battered Texas, Louisiana and the Caribbean a few weeks ago. “This one is smaller but more direct, but we have it under control,” he said.
He urged people in the storm’s path to “listen to state and local leaders”.