Storm "Isaias" killed at least four people after passing through the southern United States, while hundreds of thousands of residents and facilities are still without electricity, according to what local authorities said today (Sunday).
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey said: “This storm brought strong winds that swept through the state, uprooting trees, power outages, and causing damage.”
The authorities reported that 4 people were killed, including two as a result of trees falling on homes in the states of Florida and Alabama.
By yesterday evening (Saturday), more than 600,000 homes and businesses in the southern United States were suffering from power outages, according to the specialized website “PowerOutage.com.”
The storm decreased in intensity yesterday (Saturday), turning from a hurricane into a tropical storm or post-tropical cyclone, after making landfall in Florida, where it struck the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, accompanied by heavy rains and strong winds, according to the US National Hurricane Center.
It is now expected to move north, then northeast over the weekend, and gradually weaken as it crosses the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Before its downgrade, Isaias was a Category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale, which includes 5 categories, and its wind speed reached 165 km/hour.
Jonathan Ramos (40 years old) told Agence France-Presse in Pensacola: “We see trees bending, branches falling, and there are things flying quickly. I have never seen winds this strong before. This is scary.”
In light of the dangers of destructive winds, strong waves, and heavy rains, several states overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, including Florida and Alabama, declared a state of emergency and ordered the evacuation of entire areas.
Isaias is the first storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began on June 1, but came unusually late, partly due to the El Niño weather phenomenon.
The El Niño phenomenon causes significant modifications to atmospheric circulation, suppressing the formation of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean and strengthening them in the Pacific Ocean, where three hurricanes of the maximum fifth category were recorded this year.
President Donald Trump announced the cancellation of a scheduled visit to the neighboring state of Alabama, where he was supposed to attend an American football match.
On the other hand, “Isaias” caused disruptions in oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico, where workers were evacuated from platforms and rigs. According to the Marine Minerals Administration, about 63 percent of oil production operations in the region were suspended as of Thursday, resulting in the withdrawal of about 1.3 million barrels per day from the market. The administration added that about 57 percent of gas production operations have been suspended. Chevron and Shell also stopped production at a number of sites in the Gulf.
Yesterday (Saturday), Washington authorized the release of quantities of oil from its strategic reserve to confront supply disruptions.
The US Department of Energy announced that it “will release up to 4 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve” with the aim of confronting “supply disruptions resulting from bad weather conditions” in the Gulf of Mexico.
US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, wants to reach an agreement on war with Ukraine, accusing President Volodymyr Zelensky of not wanting to do so.
Trump told reporters, “Russia wants to conclude an agreement... but, for some reason, Zelensky does not want to conclude an agreement.” Speaking about a phone call he had with Putin on Friday, he added, “President Putin very much wants to reach a settlement.”
Trump criticized the Ukrainian president for not organizing elections since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and said, “I think he should have organized elections and could have resolved this matter on several occasions.”
Trump and Zelensky exchanged harsh criticism on Saturday following Washington's move to ease sanctions imposed on Russian diesel.
Trump announced on Friday that he had contacted Putin and agreed with him to allow Moscow to put large quantities of diesel on global markets.
Ukraine and its European allies expressed their dissatisfaction with this step, and Zelensky described it in statements to reporters on Friday as a “weak decision.”
When asked on Saturday about these criticisms, Trump told reporters that Zelensky had violated his orders not to strike Russian oil refineries.
He pointed out that these strikes exacerbate the global fuel shortage resulting from the US-Israeli war on Iran.
