UPDATE — Saturday, Oct. 10: A grim development out of Destin, Florida. Gov. Ron DeSantis confirmed Saturday that Hurricane Isaias has claimed two lives in the state — both in Escambia County. A woman was killed when a storm-toppled tree crashed onto her home. A man died from fumes off a generator that wasn't properly ventilated — and four other people in that same house had to be rushed to the hospital.
Speaking in Okaloosa County on Saturday, DeSantis said the storm's biggest weapon was the trees it ripped down. "What I saw was both from the structural perspective, I think our structures handled the storm very well," he said. "The problem is that the storm knocked over a lot of trees." The deaths mark a turn from Saturday morning, when state officials said no fatalities had been confirmed and were still checking on the fallen-tree report in Escambia County.
The power picture is still rough. Roughly 430,000 Florida customers were without electricity Saturday morning, about 325,000 of them Florida Power & Light customers. Nearly 10,000 accounts had already been brought back online, but officials said debris removal is the biggest thing slowing the crews. "The folks have been out since daylight," DeSantis said. "Some of it is that you've got to get the debris out of the way before the linemen can connect it."
More than 16,000 utility workers are now in the field after staging ahead of the storm and rolling out around 3 a.m. Saturday, Florida Division of Emergency Management Executive Director Jared Perdue said. Crews have run about 180 emergency missions through the state agency, and no state-level search-and-rescue deployments had been requested — though Perdue warned rising rivers, including the Shoal River in Okaloosa County, could still force rescues in the coming days.
BACKGROUND: Isaias came ashore Friday night near Destin around 8:30 p.m. CDT as a Category 2 hurricane packing 105 mph sustained winds — after peaking as a Category 3 over the Gulf earlier that day. Gusts hit 116 mph near Santa Rosa Sound and topped 100 mph around Pensacola and Panama City Beach. By 5 a.m. Saturday the system had faded to a post-tropical cyclone over Alabama, but DeSantis warned the flooding danger was far from over, with 4 to 8 inches of rain still forecast across the Panhandle and Big Bend through the weekend.
The morning after, nearly 900,000 homes and businesses across Florida, Alabama and Georgia were in the dark, according to PowerOutage.us. Florida's road crews were out before sunrise: forty debris-clearing teams worked I-10, thirty FDOT teams assessed flooding, and every state-owned bridge reopened by 6 a.m. — along with I-10 and U.S. 98. Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport has reopened to commercial traffic; Pensacola and Destin-Fort Walton Beach airports stayed closed at the time of the briefing but were expected to resume soon.
President Donald Trump approved Florida's pre-landfall emergency declaration, and FEMA's declaration covers 27 Panhandle and Big Bend counties, with 75 percent federal funding for emergency protective measures. The state waived tolls on the Mid-Bay Bridge, Spence Parkway and Garcon Point Bridge to keep evacuations and relief moving. Attorney General James Uthmeier warned Floridians about price gougers and fake contractors already circling — suspicious texts offering tree removal "coordinated with insurance companies" are scams, he said, and can be reported at MyFloridaLegal.com. CFO Blaise Ingoglia says insurance assistance hubs will open in the hardest-hit areas within 48 hours.
"We're going to get through this," DeSantis said. "There's damage, and that's going to be difficult for people whose property was damaged, but I also feel like this is very surmountable for us if we all just work together and get the job done." Damage stretches from the Alabama state line to the eastern Panhandle, and recovery crews will be working the region for days to come.