As Isaias Approaches, Weather and Emergency Experts Share Hurricane Survival Tips for the Gulf Coast

MOBILE, Ala. — With Hurricane Isaias closing in on the northern Gulf Coast, the advice that local weather and emergency management experts offered before this hurricane season began has taken on new urgency. A National Weather Service forecaster, a longtime Mobile County emergency manager and a veteran Alabama television meteorologist shared their hurricane survival tips earlier this year, and their message comes down to a few simple points: it only takes one storm, evacuation decisions should be made early, and a hurricane’s reach extends far beyond the beach.

Isaias grew to tropical storm strength on Wednesday, Oct. 7, and was expected to be a hurricane when it reaches the coast. Forecasts have placed potential landfall anywhere from the Mississippi coast to the Florida Panhandle, with landfall expected Friday night, Oct. 9, into early Saturday. Gulf Shores and Orange Beach have urged visitors and residents of low-lying areas to voluntarily evacuate, and in Florida, residents of some RV parks in Gulf County and Okaloosa County were reported to be under mandatory evacuation orders.

‘All it takes is one hurricane’

Brandon Black, a forecaster with the National Weather Service, explained before the season that this year’s outlook was closely tied to conditions in the Pacific Ocean. Forecasters expected a relatively strong El Niño to develop and persist through hurricane season.

“Typically when El Nino forms, it usually correlates with a lesser active, less active Atlantic season and more active Pacific season during that kind of time frame,” Black said.

El Niño, a periodic warming of surface waters in the eastern and central tropical Pacific, tends to increase wind shear over the Atlantic basin, which can tear apart developing storms. That is why seasonal outlooks often call for fewer Atlantic hurricanes in El Niño years. But Black stressed that a quieter forecast does not mean a safe one for the Gulf Coast.

He pointed to 1997, the last time an El Niño of similar strength took shape. That summer, Hurricane Danny struck the Mobile Bay area, bringing significant impacts to Mobile and Baldwin counties and parts of southern Alabama. Danny was a slow-moving storm remembered locally for the extreme rainfall it dropped around the bay.

“So it’s, you know, all it takes is one hurricane,” Black said.

That warning has proven accurate this year. The 2026 Atlantic season was notably quiet into late September, yet Isaias now threatens the same stretch of coastline Black was describing.

Lessons from 2020’s double hit

Mike Evans of Mobile County Emergency Management, whose job includes helping the public prepare for hurricanes, recalled 2020 as an especially demanding year. Hurricane Sally made landfall near Gulf Shores in September 2020, bringing destructive winds and flooding rain to Mobile and Baldwin counties. About a month later, Hurricane Zeta came ashore in Louisiana and then tracked east, remaining a hurricane as it crossed Mississippi and south Alabama.

Both storms struck during the COVID-19 pandemic, while residents were being told to wear masks, wash their hands and keep six feet apart.

“Just for a side note, that happened to be a COVID year, so we were dealing with COVID-19 and two hurricanes,” Evans said.

Before a storm, Evans said, his message to the public is straightforward. “You’ll hear me prior to a storm saying, ‘Hey, this thing’s headed our way. If you live in the following hurricane storm surge zones, you might consider where you’re going to evacuate to,'” he said.

How evacuation decisions are made

When a hurricane threatens Mobile County or the Eastern Shore, Evans said, evacuees generally head north on Interstate 65 or U.S. highways 43 and 45. Decisions about how to manage that traffic are not made by one agency alone.

Local officials can ask the state for help with the interstate, including whether to reverse lanes on I-65 so that both sides carry traffic away from the coast. “It is not done in a vacuum,” Evans said. “We have a lot of discussion between the two counties and the state. You know, the governor and the governor’s staff on how this should happen and what we should do as far as timing.”

For residents, the practical takeaway is to know before a storm whether you live in a storm surge or evacuation zone, where you would go, and which route you would take. Waiting until the last minute can mean heavier traffic, closed bridges and fewer places to stay.

A new generation of decision-makers

Evans said one of his biggest concerns is the passage of time. People who lived through major hurricanes tend to know to keep emergency kits stocked with food, water and medications and to have an evacuation route planned. But many of today’s adults were children or teenagers during the last big storms.

“As you move through time, you have individuals who the last storm we had were teenagers or kids, and they were not the decision makers,” Evans said. “Well, let’s just say decades went by, and now they’re the adult with a family, and so you know I get concerned because maybe they have no context of what this actually means.”

If you are making storm decisions for your household for the first time, emergency managers recommend leaning on official guidance rather than past experience alone, and talking through the plan with every member of the family.

A hurricane’s reach goes far inland

Richard Scott, a veteran television meteorologist who serves as chief meteorologist at a station in Tuscaloosa, said people far from the coast cannot afford to ignore a Gulf hurricane. Scott knows severe weather personally: he was on the air during the April 2011 tornado outbreak when his own home was destroyed.

He pointed to Hurricane Ivan, which made landfall near Gulf Shores in September 2004 as a major hurricane. “That hurricane maintained hurricane status as far north as Uniontown along Highway 80, and it was a strong tropical storm all the way through the Birmingham metro area up into Georgia, so this one maintained a lot of intensity,” Scott said. “We had widespread tree and power line damage over Alabama.”

Hurricanes can keep their strength well after landfall. Weather watchers often cite Hurricane Hugo, which struck South Carolina in 1989 and carried hurricane-force winds roughly 100 miles inland.

“A hurricane is much more broad than that. It has a very large area of wind and heavy rainfall,” Scott said. He said the questions people should be asking go beyond the coast: “Will it be an inland impact? So we’ll have power outages. Will there be flooding issues?”

Practical steps to take now

The experts’ advice lines up with guidance from federal, state and local emergency agencies. With Isaias approaching, residents should:

• Know your zone. Find out whether your home is in a storm surge or evacuation zone, and follow evacuation guidance from local officials.
• Build or refresh your kit. Include water (federal guidance recommends at least one gallon per person per day), nonperishable food, medications, a flashlight, batteries, a battery-powered or hand-crank radio, a first aid kit, phone chargers and copies of important documents.
• Plan for pets. Pack food, water, medications and carriers, and know which shelters accept animals.
• Fuel up and get cash. Fill vehicles and generators, and keep some cash on hand in case power outages knock out card readers and ATMs.
• Secure your property. Bring in outdoor furniture and other loose items, and protect windows if you can do so safely.
• Prepare for outages. Charge phones and power banks, and run generators only outdoors and away from windows to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning.
• Stay off flooded roads. Never drive through floodwater; a small amount of moving water can sweep a vehicle away.
• Stay informed. Rely on official sources for watches, warnings and evacuation orders.

Where to find official information

Forecasts, watches and warnings are available from the National Hurricane Center at hurricanes.gov and the National Weather Service office in Mobile at weather.gov/mob. Mobile County Emergency Management and Baldwin County Emergency Management post local updates on evacuations and shelters, and the Alabama Emergency Management Agency shares statewide information at ema.alabama.gov. Preparedness checklists are available from the Federal Emergency Management Agency at ready.gov.

Seasonal outlooks from before Isaias formed called for below-normal activity for the rest of the 2026 season. But as Black put it before the season began, a quiet year offers little comfort when a single storm is headed your way.