Hurricane Sally made landfall Tuesday morning near Gulf Shores, Alabama, bringing extreme flooding rainfall, dangerous storm surge, and damaging winds. According to The Weather Channel, the storm made landfall at 4:45 a.m. CDT as a Category 2 with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph.
Bands of heavy rain and strong winds are reportedly affecting the northern Gulf Coast, including parts of the Florida Panhandle and southern Alabama. More than 400,000 homes and businesses have already lost power in south Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. Although damaging winds are having an impact, Sally's slow movement of approximately 3 miles per hour brings with it concerns of life-threatening storm surge and the potential for historic flooding.
Sally is expected to bring rainfall totals of 30 inches or more in some areas, with the Pensacola Naval Air Station measuring the highest rainfall total so far at 24 inches. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) has warned that due to this, historic flooding is possible from Sally near and just inland from the northern Gulf Coast. The heaviest rainfall is expected to occur from extreme southeast Alabama into the western Florida Panhandle, with NOAA's Weather Prediction Center issuing rare high risk of excessive rain for this area on Wednesday. However, there is concern that heavy rainfall could also trigger flooding farther inland across other parts of southern and central Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas through Thursday night.
CNN reports that high-water rescues were already underway Wednesday morning as homes flooded and trees toppled onto roofs in Gulf Shores, Alabama. The National Weather Service has also issued a flash flood emergency for "severe threat to human life & catastrophic damage from a flash flood," encouraging people to "SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW!!" As Hurricane Sally continues to ravage parts of the south, images of this warned flooding taking place in Pensacola are already beginning to appear online.