Hurricane Sally uprooted trees, flooded streets and cut power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses on Wednesday as it brought what the U.S. National Hurricane Center called “historic and catastrophic” flooding to the Alabama-Florida coast.
Sally, which made landfall early on Wednesday near Gulf Shores, Alabama, as a Category 2 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of intensity, was downgraded in the afternoon to a tropical storm as maximum sustained winds dropped to 70 miles per hour (113 kph).
The storm is believed to have killed one person in Alabama.
“We had a body wash up, we believe it was hurricane-related, but we have no definitive proof of that right now,” said Trent Johnson, a police lieutenant in Orange Beach, Alabama.
Some parts of the Gulf Coast had been inundated with more than 18 inches (46 cm) of rain over the previous 24 hours, with more precipitation expected as the storm’s winds slow further, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
The coastal community of Pensacola, Florida, experienced up to 5 feet (1.5 m) of flooding, and travel was cut by damaged roads and bridges. More than 500,000 homes and businesses across the area were without power as the storm knocked over stately oak trees and tore power lines from poles.
Several residents along the Alabama and Florida coasts said damage from the slow-moving storm caught them off guard.
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