The death toll from Hurricane Isaias in Florida has risen to six, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Tuesday during a news conference, as cleanup continues across the state’s northwest Panhandle.
Two new deaths were added to the count: a woman killed when a tree fell on her home in Escambia County, and a man who died of carbon monoxide poisoning after improperly running a generator.
DeSantis said both deaths happened “a little bit more post-storm” and were “attenuated from the storm,” explaining that Florida’s practice is to count any death connected to storm fallout, not just those caused directly by the hurricane itself.
“The way Florida has typically done this is it’s not just if the storm knocks over your house and somebody gets killed, they kind of link anything that is even a fallout of the storm,” DeSantis said.
Of the six total deaths, DeSantis described one as a “tragic accident” involving a falling tree during cleanup, one as a car accident, and two as deaths resulting from disruptions to medical treatment.
Isaias made landfall as a Category 2 storm near Destin on Florida’s Gulf Coast around 9:30 p.m. ET Friday, bringing wind gusts up to 118 mph, heavy rain and storm surge that left Panhandle communities in shambles.
Alabama reported two storm-related deaths of its own, including one person killed when a tree fell onto a home in Birmingham. Details on the second Alabama death were not immediately available.
Power and Recovery
At the peak of the storm on Oct. 9, more than 400,000 Florida customers lost power. DeSantis said about 95% of those customers have since had power restored, though more than 20,000 remained without electricity as of Wednesday morning, concentrated in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties, according to PowerOutage.com.
In Escambia County, initial damage assessments put the cost of county repairs, emergency response and recovery efforts at roughly $64 million.
State recovery efforts are now shifting from immediate response toward debris removal, damage assessments and aid distribution across the Panhandle.
