One Dead, Thousands Without Power as Tropical Storm Gordon Strikes the Central Gulf Coast

One person was reportedly killed and thousands are without power as Tropical Storm Gordon smashed into the central Gulf Coast, making landfall between Alabama and the Florida panhandle Tuesday night with high-force winds and a heavy downpour.

In Pensacola, Florida, a child was killed when the wind felled a tree on top of a mobile home, CNN reports.

The fast-moving storm careened into the coastline around 10 p.m. registering maximum sustained winds of 70 miles-per-hour, according to the National Hurricane Center. The system did not reach the hurricane status previously forecast, however, warnings of “life-threatening” conditions remain in effect for areas expected to be hit with rapidly rising storm surges between Mississippi and Alabama.

More than 27,000 customers were hit with power cuts as Gordon came ashore Tuesday night, the Associated Press reports. The outages primarily affected Alabama, with cuts also reported around the western edge of the Florida Panhandle around Pensacola as well as in Mississippi.

Gordon is expected to lose momentum as it moves inland, and is forecast to become a tropical depression by Wednesday.

Further offshore, another system, Florence, has rapidly coalesced into a category 2 hurricane and appears to barreling toward the tropical eastern Atlantic coastline.