Isaias, the Atlantic's first hurricane of a late season, strikes Florida's panhandle as a Category 2

The Category 2 rating and its 110 mph winds describe Isaias near its centre ^[1]. The wind field is wider. As of Friday evening, hurricane-force winds extended up to 35 miles from the centre and tropical-storm-force winds as far as 205 miles ^[10]. The outer radius is nearly six times the inner one ^[18]. Both figures are stated as maximum extents, so they bound the field without describing its shape. Georgia, away from the landfall coast, was expecting weaker winds further inland and already had about 8,000 customers without power ^[9].

The outage counts were taken before Isaias reached land. PowerOutage.us counted more than 350,000 in Florida and 170,000 in Alabama ^[8]. Adding Georgia gives at least 528,000 ^[17]. The Georgia figure is given in customers, and we'd read the total the same way, as connections without power.

Isaias is also late. According to the BBC, the Atlantic season has largely been delayed by El Nino conditions in the Pacific, and this is the first time in more than 30 years that a hurricane did not form until October ^{[2] [3]}. The same report places the two Pacific storms in El Nino-fuelled warm waters ^[12]. So one climate pattern gets the credit for holding back one ocean's storms and feeding the other's. That attribution is the BBC's. In our view a single late season fits it, but cannot measure how much of the delay El Nino caused.

On this evidence, Isaias and the Pacific systems overlap in timing. The BBC report does not describe crews, shelters or supplies being shared between states or running short, and it covers the Pacific storms in a single sentence ^[12].

Officials pressed people to go. Florida Senator Rick Scott wrote in a social media post: "DO NOT WAIT! Get out NOW!" ^[7] Melissa Watson, a Florida-based National Weather Service meteorologist, warned of possible tornadoes. She told the BBC that for those who have not evacuated, "the main thing will be having multiple ways to receive warnings" ^[15]. She added: "We want people to remain inside and safe while the hurricane is moving through." ^[16]

Some stayed anyway. John Guoth of Navarre said the rest of his street had left, but he and his wife were staying at home ^[13]. "It's a hurricane, we get them all the time... we kind of knew that when we moved here," he said ^[13]. In Pensacola, Brandin Ruth said: "You don't want to underestimate a storm like this" ^[14].