The Florida Panhandle had spent days preparing for Hurricane Isaias by the time it made landfall close to Destin, Florida late on Friday nite. In both Florida and Alabama, thousands of homes were under mandatory evacuation orders. Three states had declared states of emergency. Even so, the storm arrived as a Category 2 with maximum sustained winds of 105 miles per hour. It caused damage that is difficult to quantify, such as roofs being torn off apartment buildings in Milton, a boathouse being flattened in Destin, and a hotel in Pensacola losing its roof due to wind gusts that, according to the mayor, “took some damage” to the city’s airport.
There were four fatalities. That is the confirmed death toll as of Saturday nite, and every fatality has a backstory that transcends the impersonality of storm data. A tree fell on a woman’s home in Escambia County, Florida, killing her. According to her husband, Joey Williams, she went outside to take pictures of the storm damage before coming back inside, which is when the tree broke through the roof. He managed to escape. She didn’t. The horrible randomness of which direction you were standing when the wood gave way is the kind of detail that sticks with you.
A man who ran a generator inside a closed garage and died from carbon monoxide poisoning was the second fatality in Escambia County. Four additional residents of the same home were transported to the hospital. “Don’t run any generators inside your home, it can be very, very hazardous,” said Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who spent most of Saturday at press conferences urging caution.
Emergency managers reiterate this warning prior to each significant storm, but it continues to occur, which raises unsettling questions about how people handle crises by grabbing whatever will turn on the lights without considering the repercussions.
In Alabama, two more fatalities were reported, at least one of which involved a tree falling on a Birmingham residence. Isaias “cannot clear fast enough,” according to Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, who watched the storm move inland through her state through Saturday. That phrase conveys a message of tiredness rather than indignation or surprise. These storms are familiar to the Gulf Coast. Milton and storms before Milton have been absorbed by the area, and each time the evacuation and recovery machinery kicks in and grinds through it. However, four people remain deceased.
Nearly 900,000 customers in Florida, Alabama, and Georgia were without power at its worst. That figure had decreased to about 550,000 by Saturday afternoon, but it was still a substantial number that meant spoiled food, darkened homes, and no air conditioning during the October heat. The Florida National Guard posted pictures of soldiers swimming to get to a truck stuck in a drainage ditch as rescue teams pulled people out of vehicles submerged in floodwater. Beach chairs that had been thrown around during the storm were being discreetly repositioned while workers in Destin swept drifts of insulation off parking lots.
It’s difficult to ignore the fact that Isaias was the first hurricane to hit the United States since Milton made landfall precisely two years ago south of Tampa. It takes two years for preparation systems to stabilize, memories to become a little less intense, and the unique sense of urgency that follows a significant storm to subside. Then the same lessons are taught again by a new storm. This coastline has seen worse outcomes than four fatalities. However, four individuals were still alive on Friday morning but had passed away by Saturday nite. There is more to that disparity than just a statistic.