PENSACOLA: Hurricane Sally uprooted trees, flooded streets and cut power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses on Wednesday as it brought what the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) called “historic and catastrophic” flooding to the Alabama-Florida coast.
Sally, which made landfall early Wednesday near Gulf Shores, Alabama, as a Category 2 storm, was downgraded in the afternoon to a tropical storm as maximum sustained winds dropped to 113 kmph.
Some parts of the Gulf Coast had been inundated with more than 18 inches of rain over the previous 24 hours, with more precipitation expected as the storm’s winds slow further, the NHC said.
The coastal community of Pensacola, Florida, suffered up to five feet of flooding, and travel was cut by damaged roads and bridges. More than 500,000 homes and businesses across the area were without power as the storm knocked over stately oak trees and tore power lines from poles.
A section of the Pensacola Bay Bridge, known also as the `Three Mile Bridge’, is missing a “significant section”, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said at a press conference.
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey told residents not to go outside to check on damage unless necessary and to stay away from live power lines and fallen trees.