Hurricane Sally has made landfall as a Category 2 hurricane near Gulf Shores, Alabama.
According to the National Hurricane Center, who's been providing regular updates on storm activity, Sally made landfall at 4:45 a.m. local time. at the time, maximum sustained winds were reported as being at 105 mph with a minimum central pressure of 965 mb.
In a subsequent update shared a little over an hour after confirmed landfall, the NHC warned that hurricane-force winds were spreading inland over the southeastern region of the state, as well as the western portion of the Florida Panhandle. Additionally, "catastrophic and life-threatening flooding" are expected in portions of the Northern Gulf Coast.
Per the Associated Press, nearly half a million homes and businesses in affected areas had lost electricity by early Wednesday. Gulf Shores officials, meanwhile, instituted a curfew prior to landfall due to the likelihood of dangerous conditions.
Complicating things further, as NHC deputy director Ed Rappaport explained in the same report, is the unusual speed of the storm.
"Sally has a characteristic that isn't often seen and that’s a slow forward speed and that's going to exacerbate the flooding," Rappaport said, adding that this trait of Sally calls to mind the behavior of Hurricane Harvey back in 2017.
At the time of this writing, flooding remained at the center of all words of warning from a variety of weather agencies. Heightened levels of rainfall is expected to continue for several days.
In a statement, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey told "fellow Alabamians" that Sally was "nothing to take for granted" and warned of flooding "perhaps breaking historic levels."
