After Hurricane Sally, a Waterlogged Gulf Coast Takes Stock

The Coast Guard was sending boat teams to assist in the aftermath, and 200 members of the National Guard were scheduled to arrive on Thursday.

One person died in Orange Beach,

Ala., a coastal community of some 2,500 people straddling the state line, Mayor Tony Kennon said, and another person was missing. He said search-and-rescue operations at night would be minimal because of the dangerous conditions, including large amounts of debris in the water.

The National Hurricane Center said late Wednesday that Sally had been downgraded to a tropical depression as it continued to dump torrential rainfall along the Alabama and Georgia border, reaching as high as a foot in some places and raising the threat of flash floods. The storm was expected to push on to the Carolinas, dropping several inches of rain.

As of 4 a.m. Central time Thursday, the center of the storm system was 50 miles southeast of Montgomery, Ala.About 287,000 electricity customers in Alabama and 220,000 in Florida were still without power, prompting the National Weather Service in Mobile and Pensacola to issue warnings about the proper use of generators. At least seven people died from carbon monoxide poisoning from generators during Hurricane Laura last month.

Some residents expressed exasperation as they considered the tough days ahead.

Omi Yoder and her husband moved to the Bristol Park subdivision outside Pensacola just two months ago. They bought a brick house with white siding on a cul-de-sac next to a creek; Ms. Yoder is expecting her first child, a girl, in about a month.