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Storm Sally has brought heavy rain and flooding to the Carolinas and Georgia as it continues its path of destruction north of the US Gulf Coast.
It has already hit Florida and Alabama with rain and storm surge, knocking down power lines, turning roads into rivers and leaving homes submerged.
One person died and hundreds of thousands were without power.
Sally has now weakened to a post-tropical cyclone, but meteorologists warn that tornadoes are still possible.
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Submerged houses in Pensacola, Florida
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The wind ripped the roof off this house in Perdido Key, Florida
In addition to the reported death in Orange Beach, Alabama, one person is also missing in the small coastal town in southwestern Alabama, according to Mayor Tony Kennon.
“It was an incredibly strange right turn from a storm that none of us expected,” he told the Washington Post.
Pensacola, Florida, 30 m (48 km) east of Orange Beach, was also badly hit, with a loose barge knocking down part of the city’s Bay Bridge.
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Downtown Pensacola suffered flooding of up to 5 feet and saw the highest storm surge on record. The storm brought “four months of rain in four hours” to the city, Pensacola Fire Chief Ginny Cranor told CNN.
The images show residents wading waist-deep in water, cars stranded in flooded streets and houses completely flooded by Wednesday’s deluge.
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In Gulf Shores, Alabama, near where Sally first made landfall as a hurricane on Wednesday, the storm sliced through the facade of a beachside apartment complex. And 50 miles (80 km) northwest in Mobile, Alabama, photos show the large bell tower of the El-Bethel Primitive Baptist Church that collapsed after the storm.
Sally arrived in Gulf Shores, Alabama, at 4:45 a.m. local time on Wednesday, with maximum winds of 105 mph (169 km / h).
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According to the National Hurricane Center (NHC), Category 2 hurricanes have sustained winds of 96 to 110 mph. The NHC says “extremely dangerous winds” from a Category 2 storm generally damage houses and shallow rooted trees.
As the storm moved north from the coast, some 550,000 residents in the affected areas went dark Wednesday night, according to local reports.
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Now a post-tropical cyclone, the storm is expected to deposit up to 10 inches (25 cm) of rain in Virginia and the Carolinas. It is likely to cause widespread flash flooding, the NHC said Thursday.
Maximum wind speeds have decreased to 40 mph as the storm moves northeast.
Sally is one of at least five storms in the Atlantic Ocean. Officials are running out of letters to name the hurricanes as they near the end of their annual alphabetical list.
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