MILTON, Fla.—It’s called a “sting jet.” A catastrophic cluster of tornado-like winds emerged on the edge of Hurricane Isaias and swept across hundreds of miles of Florida and Alabama like an atmospheric landslide.
While coastal, more densely populated areas such as Florida’s Pensacola Beach and Destin faced their own destructive suite of storm surge and roof-ripping winds, this extremely rare wind event left the sparsely populated rural areas farther north bombarded by falling trees that crushed homes, downed power lines, and completely cut off entire communities.
Now, volunteers armed with chainsaws, winches, and emergency supplies are pushing into that Flora-Bama pine-and-oak forest to rescue people and reconnect them to civilization….