Rescuers reach people cut off by Gulf Coast hurricane

PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) – Hurricane Sally left some people on the Gulf Coast cut off by floodwaters until they could be rescued by teams in boats and high-water vehicles.

Storm damaged boats sit at the dock in a marina, Thursday, Sept. 17, 2020, in Pensacola, Fla. Rivers swollen by Hurricane Sally’s rains threatened more misery for parts of the Florida Panhandle and south Alabama on Thursday, as the storm’s remnants continued to dump heavy rains inland that spread the threat of flooding to Georgia and the Carolinas.(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Crews were pulling people out of flooded areas Thursday near Pensacola, Florida, while Alabama National Guard troops helped people evacuate near Mobile Bay.

Homeowners and businesses along the soggy Gulf Coast were cleaning up, even as a second round of flooding took shape along rivers and creeks swollen by the storm’s heavy rains.

Sally has been blamed for at least one death, in Alabama.

Meanwhile, a new tropical depression has formed in the Gulf just hours after Hurricane Sally left. The National Hurricane Center in Miami reported Thursday evening that Tropical Depression 22 had formed over the southwestern Gulf and was forecast to move slowly over the western Gulf into next week.

There was no threat to land as of Thursday night, but the center says the depression could become a tropical storm on Friday. The depression had maximum sustained winds of 35 mph and was located Thursday night about 230 miles east of Tampico, Mexico, and about 330 miles southeast of the mouth of the Rio Grande. The storm is moving about 5 mph.