Isaias strengthened into a category 3 hurricane on Friday morning as it barreled toward the US Gulf coast, where states of emergency have been declared in Alabama, Florida and Mississippi.
The hurricane, the first in the Atlantic in what has turned into a very late 2026 season, is expected to cause a “life-threatening storm surge”, officials said. Isaias is forecast to make landfall on Friday night, somewhere along the Alabama-Florida line with surging seas up to 7ft (2.1 meters) and waves as high as 30ft (9.1 meters).
“Damaging hurricane-force winds are expected over portions of the Florida panhandle, southern Alabama and southern Mississippi, where a hurricane warning is in effect. Residents in these areas should prepare for the possibility of long-duration power outages,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) said.
Noaa said a storm surge is expected from south-east Louisiana to Suwannee, in north-east Florida. Isaias could also dump up to 15in (380mm) of rain on coastal areas and even spawn tornadoes overnight on Friday into Saturday from Alabama to the Florida panhandle and south-western Georgia. The hurricane is expected to quickly weaken after coming ashore.
Heavy rain began falling along the coast on Friday morning and winds were picking up sharply, with tropical storm conditions expected by early afternoon.
Isaias had maximum sustained winds of 105mph (169km/h) at daybreak on Friday, which strengthened to 120mph (195km/h) by mid-morning, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC). It was headed north-north-east at 15mph (24km/h) and by mid-morning was centered about 145 miles (235km) south-east of the mouth of the Mississippi River in Louisiana.
The NHC said Dauphin Island, a barrier island off the Alabama coast, could see a 7ft (2.1-meter) storm surge, while Indian Pass, 200 miles (322km) to the east on the Florida coast, could see a 6ft (1.8-meter) surge.
“Preparations should be rushed to completion as the weather will go downhill quickly today,” the NHC said. “While the storm is not expected to make landfall at peak intensity, it is likely that Isaias will still be a significant hurricane when it reaches the coast.”
Alabama’s governor, Kay Ivey, ordered non-residents to immediately evacuate Dauphin Island, Gulf Shores and Orange Beach on Thursday, while officials encouraged voluntary evacuations for residents. Videos on social media showed traffic at a standstill on a highway leading out of Gulf Shores, where double red flags signaled that beaches were closed.
Ivey has declared a state of emergency for 40 counties in Alabama, while Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, has declared a state of emergency in 27 counties. Several cities and counties in south Mississippi have done the same. DeSantis said 5,000 national guard troops were expected to mobilize in Florida, where at least four school districts cancelled late-week classes.
The Atlantic hurricane season has been unusually quiet this year because of a strong El Niño, which disrupts storm formation over the Atlantic. The first hurricane of the season has not formed this late since 8 October 1905, which predates the satellite era (1960s) for tracking hurricanes.
Ahead of the storm, oil and gas producers shut down a significant share of offshore production in the Gulf, which accounts for almost 15% of crude pumped annually in the US.
As of Thursday, about 63% of the oil production in the region had been temporarily halted, taking nearly 1.3m barrels a day off the market, according to the Marine Minerals Administration. It said 121 of the Gulf’s 371 crewed oil platforms had been evacuated.
The storm could be the first major test of the ability of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) to deploy a large workforce after the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts and restructuring of the agency, emergency management experts say.
The Trump administration has said it wants to eliminate, or drastically downsize, Fema, putting more burden on states. More than 4,300 employees left the agency in fiscal year 2025, about 17% of the workforce, according to a recent US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.
The agency’s staffing reductions were not carried out systematically to ensure Fema could still meet its statutory obligations, said Chris Currie, director of homeland security and justice at the GAO.
