Hurricane Isaias struck the Florida Panhandle "like a freight train" overnight, battering communities from Destin to Pensacola with destructive winds, torrential rain and dangerous storm surge before weakening as it moved inland. The season's first Atlantic hurricane made landfall near Destin late Friday evening with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph, then was downgraded to Category 1 with 90 mph winds by late Friday night.
Florida Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, who joined emergency crews in the Panhandle on Friday night, described the storm's speed and force in stark terms. "This thing hit like a freight train. It was fast," Collins told Fox News, adding that it came "like a Mike Tyson punch." He said preliminary reports did not show catastrophic damage, but warned the storm was not over and that the full extent of the destruction would become clearer as damage assessments begin.
The power toll has been severe. More than 600,000 customers were without electricity across Florida, Alabama and Georgia as the storm moved inland, according to the FOX Weather outage tracker — roughly 375,000 in Florida, 215,000 in Alabama and more than 10,000 in Georgia. In Escambia County, which includes Pensacola, roughly two-thirds of customers lost power. Collins put Florida's total at more than 420,000 customers as of Friday night into Saturday morning.
Water has been the other major weapon of this storm. The National Weather Service issued a rare Flash Flood Emergency for parts of Okaloosa County on Friday evening, with the tourist town of Destin at the center of the warning. DeFuniak Springs recorded an astonishing 12.46 inches of rain — more than a foot — as the storm passed. Storm surge pushed water levels 4.4 feet above normal tide at Panama City Beach, and forecasters had warned of surges as high as 6 to 9 feet along some stretches of the coast from the Alabama-Florida border to Grayton Beach.
Roads in Destin were flooded, while Pensacola police warned residents to stay off the streets because of debris across the roadways. Residents posted photos of downed trees and power lines, and one video showed a roof being torn from an inn in Pensacola. Some Panhandle counties temporarily suspended emergency response on Friday night because conditions were too dangerous for crews to operate.
About 900,000 people heeded warnings to leave the storm's path before landfall, Collins said. Gov. Ron DeSantis, who expanded a state of emergency to 27 North Florida counties, told Floridians to "buckle down" on Friday, warning that flash flooding would be a hazard "throughout the region." President Donald Trump, speaking to reporters at the White House late Friday, said officials were watching the storm closely and described the situation as "under control."
As Isaias pushes north, the danger is shifting inland. The National Hurricane Center warned that hurricane-force winds could spread as far as 100 miles inland, and tornadoes were possible Friday night and into Saturday across the Florida Panhandle, southeast Alabama and southern Georgia. Forecasters expected 4 to 8 inches of rain across the Panhandle and southern Alabama, with localized totals up to 15 inches. Flash and urban river flooding were expected across southern Alabama and the Panhandle into southwestern Georgia, and tropical-storm-force winds were forecast to reach central Alabama, including Birmingham, overnight into Saturday.
The storm is also significant for what it is: the first Atlantic hurricane of the 2026 season, arriving after a relatively quiet season and making a record-late first landfall. Collins drew a deliberate contrast with the last catastrophic storm to hit this coast — Category 5 Hurricane Michael, which devastated the Panhandle on October 10, 2018, almost exactly eight years ago. "I don't think we're going to have a Michael-like event here," he said.
Recovery work is expected to accelerate through the weekend as winds ease. Utility crews that staged in Pensacola and Navarre ahead of the storm will begin restoration once it is safe. FEMA has emergency operations active, and officials continue to urge residents to stay off the roads, avoid downed power lines and treat flooded streets as impassable. With heavy rain still falling across the Southeast and tornadoes still possible, authorities say the storm's inland chapter will take most of Saturday to fully play out.
Related: Hurricane Isaias Slams Into the Florida Panhandle, Leaving Hundreds of Thousands Without Power and Hurricane Isaias Powers Up to Category 2, Eyes Gulf Coast Landfall Tonight.