Hurricane Zeta Leaves 3 Dead as It Knocks Out Power for Millions Across the Gulf Coast

Tomas Stargardter/AP/Shutterstock

Three people are dead and are millions without power as a result of Hurrican Zeta.

On Wednesday, the hurricane made landfall along the Gulf Coast as a Category 2 storm, where it left a path of destruction in its wake.

The hurricane, which has since been demoted back to a tropical storm since it hit, has destroyed homes and businesses in the Gulf Coast region, as it also knocked out power lines and flooded streets, according to The Weather Channel.

As of Thursday morning, millions of homes and businesses are without power across several states, per PowerOutage.us. In Georgia, just under one million customers are without power while Louisiana is showing more than 480,000 outages. Meanwhile, Alabama has more than 300,000 without power.

In addition to destruction and power outages, the storm has also killed three people.

According to The Associated Press, a 55-year-old Louisiana man was electrocuted by a downed power line, while an Alabama man drowned at a marina after taking a video of the storm, the Sun Herald reports. In Georgia, another man was killed after a tree fell through his house, per AJC.

RELATED: Tropical Storm Zeta Expected to Become Next Atlantic Hurricane as it Nears the Gulf Coast

Alonso Cupul/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock Hurricane Zeta

Zeta is the 27th named system of the 2020 season and follows Hurricane Delta, which made landfall earlier this month and left 700,000 residents in Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi, without power.

As the 27th system this year, Zeta puts 2020 on track to either tie or break the all-time record for the number of named storms in the Atlantic in one season. The record was set back in 2005, which featured 28 tropical storms.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

According to The New York Times, Hurricane Zeta hit the Southern United States area with winds that hit over 100 miles per hour.

The National Hurricane Center adds that more movement is expected for the storm later on Thursday, projecting that it "will move across portions of the southeastern U.S. this morning, across the Mid-Atlantic states this afternoon, and emerge over the western Atlantic by tonight."

RELATED: Robin Roberts Visits Gulf Coast After Back-to-Back Hurricanes: 'Moving to See Such Resilience'

Rodolfo Flores / Eyepix Group/Barcroft Media via Getty Hurricane Zeta

Energy company Entergy issued a statement on Twitter, where they warned social media users that the most dangerous part of the storm is "just after it has passed."

"Stay away from downed power lines and areas of debris," they wrote.

In a news release, the company also said that those without power from the storm may have to wait for a bit of time for their power to be restored.

"Based on historical restoration times, customers in the direct path of a Category 1 hurricane can experience outages up to seven days and outages up to 10 days for a Category 2 hurricane," the group said. "While 90% of customers will be restored sooner, customers should plan for the possibility of being in the hardest-hit area."