‘Life-threatening storm surge’ headed to US Gulf coast as residents brace for Isaias

Isaias strengthened into a category 3 hurricane on Friday 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 western Florida Panhandle, with surging seas up to about 7ft (2.1 meters) and waves as high as 30ft (9.1 meters).

The National Weather Service issued a rare extreme wind warning Friday night for the western Florida Panhandle.

“Treat these imminent extreme winds as if a tornado was approaching and move immediately to an interior room or shelter NOW!” the Mobile, Alabama, office for the National Weather Service wrote on social media Friday, calling the situation “extremely dangerous”.

The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) also warned that residents should “prepare for the possibility of long-duration power outages”.

Noaa said a storm surge was 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 115mph on early Friday evening, down from 120mph at mid-morning, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC). The NHC at that time said increasing wind shear was weakening the storm’s intensity.

The center also said that Isaias was about 90 miles south of Pensacola, Florida, and headed north at nearly 17mph.

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 to the east on the Florida coast, could see a 6ft 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 of the 1960s for tracking hurricanes.

Before 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.