Hurricane Isaias hit the Florida Panhandle Friday night, and several North Texas organizations had already started moving people, vehicles and supplies toward the storm zone.
Isaias made landfall near Destin around 9:30 p.m. Eastern time as a Category 2 hurricane with top sustained winds of 105 mph, WFAA reported. By Saturday morning the storm had lost its tropical characteristics and was classified a post-tropical cyclone. Forecasters still warned of flash flooding and tornadoes as its remnants moved across Alabama toward the Midwest and Northeast through Monday.
Two deaths were reported, both caused by falling trees: one in Birmingham, Ala., where a large tree crashed onto a home during the night, and one in the Pensacola area, according to FOX Weather and the Escambia County sheriff. Poweroutage.com counted more than 911,000 homes and businesses without electricity across Florida, Alabama and Georgia early Saturday, FOX reported.
Ambulances from Arlington
Global Medical Response, which WFAA described as the nation's largest company providing both ambulance and air medical care, keeps 100 ambulances staged in an Arlington warehouse along with support equipment, its chief of emergency management, Phillip Mongeau, told WFAA. Teams from Arlington are joining crews the company is sending from other cities.
The company also runs more than 75 ambulances in Panhandle emergency medical systems, many in Santa Rosa County and around Pensacola, Mongeau said.
Supplies from Grand Prairie
World Vision's 56,000-square-foot Grand Prairie warehouse is the group's staging point for the region and is set up to respond to a disaster within 72 hours, site manager Roberta Taylor told CBS News Texas. Staff spent Friday loading a truck that was set to leave Saturday morning carrying generators, tarps, nonperishable food, diapers, socks, backpacks, toys and cleanup kits, she told FOX 4.
The group is working with churches and other relief organizations on the Gulf Coast to decide where the supplies go.
World Vision accepts donated goods but prefers money, Taylor said, so it can buy what a specific disaster calls for. Donations can be made at worldvision.org.
