Isaias moves north into Appalachians and mid-Atlantic; Southern California battered by Rachel
PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) — People in the Florida Panhandle and southern Alabama cleaned up after Isaias swept through as the storm's remnants brought the risk of flooding to the central Appalachians and the mid-Atlantic region on Sunday. Meanwhile, significant waves from Rachel, a former tropical storm, battered the coast of Southern California.
In western North Carolina, rivers overflowed as heavy rainfall raised the risk of flash and urban flooding, according to the National Weather Service. Tornadoes were possible in parts of Virginia and North Carolina, and life-threatening surf and rip current conditions were expected along the Gulf and southeastern Atlantic coasts.
At least four deaths were linked to Isaias, the first hurricane of the Atlantic season, which came ashore as a Category 2 hurricane Friday near Destin, Florida, a Gulf Coast vacation spot filled with high-rises and tourist shops. The storm then roared into Alabama with tropical-force winds before heading farther north.
In Florida’s Escambia County, Sheriff Chip Simmons said 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.
One person died when a tree fell on a house in Birmingham, said Cory Moon, the city’s fire chief. A second storm-related death in Alabama was attributed to a motor vehicle crash involving a downed tree in Barbour County, said Josh Johnson of the state’s emergency management agency.
In Burke County, North Carolina, an unhoused male and female were camping when floodwaters from the Catawba River caught them off guard. They were rescued, along with their dog, according to a spokesperson for the county emergency management agency. Separately, a woman trapped inside her car in floodwaters was freed outside of Morganton.
In McDowell County, North Carolina, just west of Burke County, first responders said they dealt with five landslides and voluntary evacuations overnight Saturday into Sunday as they responded to flooded roads and streams overflowing their banks.
“Despite a challenging night, we are thankful to report no known injuries or loss of life. We call that a success!” the county emergency management agency posted online.
Nearly a dozen local weather stations in the western North Carolina county reported torrential 24-hour rainfall totals at 9 a.m. Sunday, from about 5 inches (13 centimeters) to as much as 9.57 inches (24 centimeters) at the fire/rescue station in Enola. The weather service said rainfall was diminishing in the area but that rapid river rises and flooding remained possible.
Hurricane-force winds in the Florida Panhandle blew the roof off a Pensacola hotel. The storm flattened a boathouse in Destin and ripped away part of the facade of a high-rise in Panama City Beach.
At a church in Pensacola where the United Cajun Navy was distributing supplies Sunday morning, a line of hundreds of cars stretched around the block. Yvette Haro said she arrived at 5 a.m. after being turned away the previous day because supplies had run out.
With a 10-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter at home, she said it's hard to go to stores and wait in long lines. She was looking for water, paper towels, toilet paper and cleaning supplies.
“Anything that they’re willing to give us is helpful,” she said.
While her home didn't suffer any damage, the loss of electricity was making things difficult, Haro said. “The biggest thing is our food going bad.”
Roughly 328,000 customers were without power in southern Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, according to poweroutage.com.
Sarah Gatewood, a spokesperson for Florida Power & Light, said workers from all over Florida and from more than two dozen other states were mobilized to help restore power.
Rachel became a post-tropical cyclone overnight, bringing unusually big waves to Southern California, and it dissipated over Las Vegas as it drenched deserts across the Southwest.
An inch (2.4 centimeters) of rain fell in Las Vegas by early Sunday afternoon, leading to about 10 water rescues.
Video posted on social media showed gushing water and flooded streets on the Las Vegas strip. The footage also showed partially submerged shopping carts strewn about the street and water pouring into a concrete channel.
In California, waves battered a century-old wooden boardwalk on the Long Beach peninsula and forced homeowners to evacuate. The strip of multimillion-dollar oceanfront properties, along with much of the Southern California coastline, was already reeling from Hurricane Marie in September.
“This area is completely shattered and vulnerable,” Jack Gordon, a Long Beach real estate agent, said.
The Pacific Ocean is abnormally warm, about 7 to 8 degrees F warmer than normal for this time of year, due to the El Niño weather pattern, said Joe Sirard of the National Weather Service in Oxnard, California
“When we have this warm water, it actually causes the ocean to rise above the normal predicted tide levels,” Sirard said. That's affected by Rachel's ocean swells and wind gusts.
Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson said that the storm would affect the whole city, and urged city residents to avoid the peninsula through the weekend as crews worked to clean up the area. More than half a dozen houses along the coast were declared structurally unsafe.
“It is not normal that we see this type of activity, especially for our residents in the peninsula,” Richardson said Saturday. “These kind of impacts are not normal, they are unprecedented for our community.”
And in the Pacific, Hurricane Simon was a Category 4 storm as it pounded Mexico’s Pacific coast Sunday, its eye remaining just offshore as its most powerful winds and rain slammed people living between the Sierra Madre and the ocean.
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Brumback reported from Atlanta. Walker reported from New York. Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, Jack Brook in New Orleans and Josh Kelety in Phoenix also contributed.
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