The first hurricane of the 2026 Atlantic season, Hurricane Isaias hit the Gulf Coast on October 9 as a strong Category 2 storm, making landfall near Pensacola in the western Florida Panhandle. The hurricane brought with it dangerous storm surges and tornado watches throughout a multiple-state region, as well as extensive power outages, damage to travel infrastructure and evacuation orders in portions of Alabama and Florida. States of emergency have been declared in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi.
Hurricane Isaias is predicted to continue its track north, where it could cause flooding affecting communities throughout the Southeast—including Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky—in the coming days, further reducing access to critical services, including healthcare.
International Medical Corps, a pre-vetted responder with the state of Florida and Florida Department of Health, has close ties with the primary care associations (PCAs) of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee. We are prepositioning supplies and staff, working closely with PCA leadership, the National Association of Community Health Centers and federally qualified health center (FQHC) partners to respond as needed. We have an emergency response team on standby to deploy should the need arise, with the anticipated impacted areas including the Florida Panhandle and the Gulf Coast region of Alabama and Mississippi.
International Medical Corps has been an emergency responder in the United States and Caribbean since 2005, when we partnered with local community clinics overwhelmed by Hurricane Katrina. In the US, International Medical Corps works with national, state and local partners in the healthcare system to address the significant challenges that face domestic healthcare services, and deploys emergency response teams in response to disasters.
Over the past seven years, International Medical Corps has engaged partner networks of more than 650 hospitals, clinics, healthcare and health-related facilities and NGOs across 20 states and territories, supporting more than 6.5 million patients and healthcare providers. Since 2024, we have responded to 19 emergencies across 15 states and territories.