Utilities across a long stretch of the East were struggling to keep the lights on, with more than 440,000 homes and businesses offline from Pennsylvania through Florida. PowerOutage.com put the total at 441,749 as what was left of Isaias crossed Tennessee early Sunday. Isaias reached the U.S. coast Friday night at Category 2 intensity, and at least four people have died, according to Facebook posts from Alabama officials and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
According to the National Hurricane Center, in the West the leftovers of Tropical Storm Rachel are sweeping quickly across Southern California and intensifying worries about flooding from southern Idaho through Mexico's Baja California. PowerOutage.com reported that in Utah, over 9,500 customers had no power. A concentrated core of heavy rain tied to Rachel is targeting areas west of Las Vegas and has prompted warnings in Death Valley, said AccuWeather meteorologist Dan Pydynowski. He called the two-coast squeeze "rare, but not unheard of," adding, "It certainly doesn't happen every year and it is not common per se, but it does happen." He pointed to 2021 - when Hurricane Ida hit Louisiana while moisture from Hurricane Nora near Mexico drenched Arizona - and 1992, when Hurricane Andrew slammed Florida as Hurricane Lester tracked through the Southwest from the Pacific.
Simultaneous storms on both coasts strain power and fuel systems at once. Market Briefs covers that exposure free every weekday.
Farther south, Hurricane Simon is packing sustained winds of 150 miles per hour, making it a Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson scale. According to the U.S. hurricane center, some of the storm's most intense winds were raking portions of the coasts of Jalisco and Colima, and if landfall is formally declared it could brush Jalisco. Pydynowski added that Simon might instead track just offshore and delay coming ashore until later in the week. Mexico's weather service is forecasting heavy rain across Jalisco, and waves could approach 20 feet, or about 6 meters. Eric Blake, a senior hurricane specialist with the U.S. center, said, "Catastrophic wind and life-threatening storm surge impacts are likely along a portion of the west-central coast of Mexico." "Heavy rainfall associated with Simon will impact portions of southwestern Mexico through this weekend."
Weather like this hits basics first: power, roads, and local commerce. Outages from the Mid-Atlantic to Florida, flood risks from Idaho to Baja, and the pounding along Mexico's west-central coast could affect travel, insurance claims, utilities' restoration costs, and regional retailers. Keep an eye on updates from the named states and counties here as crews assess damage and timetables firm up. The headline risk looks broad, but actual impacts are clustering where the systems are tracking.
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