Hurricane Isaias kills at least eight in USA

At least eight people have died in storms and flooding linked to Hurricane Isaias in the US states of Florida and Alabama, as violent winds and heavy rainfall damaged homes and disrupted electricity supplies across the Gulf Coast.

According to a Weather Media report published on Wednesday, officials have confirmed six deaths in Florida and two in Alabama. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said that residents’ preparedness and local authorities’ awareness campaigns had helped mitigate the impact, noting that some previous storms had caused higher death tolls. Moreover, the fatalities in Florida included a woman killed when a tree fell on a house in Escambia County, while another person died of carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a generator in Pensacola, where four other family members were hospitalised. Additional storm-related deaths involved an accident during tree removal, a road crash amid malfunctioning traffic signals and disruptions to medical services.

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In Alabama, one person died after a tree fell on a house in Birmingham on Saturday morning, whereas Governor Kay Ivey confirmed a further death in Jefferson County. However, the authorities have not disclosed the circumstances of the second fatality.