Hurricane Sally makes landfall, emergency in Florida

iNDICA NEWS BUREAU & AGENCIES

President Donald Trump has declared a state of emergency in the State of Florida due to the Hurricane Sally that made landfall as a Category 2 near Gulf Shores, Alabama, Wednesday morning.

CNN reported that Hurricane Sally crossed over land, near the Alabama-Florida state line, around 5:45am ET with winds of 105 mph.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned on Tuesday that the hurricane, the second storm bearing down on the US coast of the Gulf of Mexico in a span of three weeks, could bring “extreme, life-threatening” and historic floods to the region.

Hurricane Sally is the 18th named storm in the Atlantic this year, according to NHC records. It started as a tropical storm and strengthened to a Category 2 hurricane.

Hurricane warnings have been issued for southeast Louisiana and all of the Mississippi and Alabama Gulf coast.

On September 12, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards declared a state of emergency.

Evacuation orders were also issued in southeast areas of the state.

In coastal Louisiana, Grand Isle and St. Charles Parish are under mandatory evacuation orders, and a recommended evacuation notice went out to the community of Port Fourchon.

In New Orleans, Mayor LaToya Cantrell issued a mandatory evacuation order for areas outside of the city’s levee protection system.

The evacuation order will be in effect for the areas of Venetian Isles, Irish Bayou and Lake Catherine.

In Mississippi, Governor Tate Reeves also signed a preliminary state of emergency for the state.

According to the Governor, coastal areas such as Hancock, Harrison, Jackson and Pearl River counties are listed in high risk of significant rainfall.

Sally comes less than three weeks after Hurricane Laura, one of the strongest US hurricanes in more than a century, made landfall near Cameron, Louisiana, in late August as a Category 4 storm.

That hurricane, which killed at least 25 people and damaged countless property, also scored a near-direct hit on one refinery in Louisiana processing 769,000 barrels per day of crude oil.