Isaias was forecast to intensify rapidly and bring strong winds and a life-threatening storm surge to the Florida Panhandle, southern Alabama and southern Mississippi when it makes landfall on the northern Gulf Coast late Friday or early Saturday. Heavy rain with the risk of flooding was possible into the weekend as far inland as the Tennessee Valley.
The hurricane had maximum sustained winds around 80 mph and was moving east-northeast at 9 mph early Thursday morning, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said. It was centered about 420 miles south-southwest of the mouth of the Mississippi River.
Coastal communities moved quickly to prepare. Some Gulf oil wells paused production, and at least four Florida school districts canceled classes for later in the week while Okaloosa County announced mandatory evacuations for some coastal areas. Governors in Florida and Alabama declared a state of emergency for dozens of counties.
The National Weather Service told communities from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, to Gulf County, Florida, to prepare for the possibility of “long-duration power outages.”
Isaias developed more than four months into the Atlantic hurricane season and was short by one day of tying a 121-year-old record for the area’s latest-forming hurricane. According to the National Weather Service, the record dates to 1905, when the year’s first Atlantic hurricane formed on Oct. 8.
