|
|
|
Last Updated: Dec 15, 2007 - 2:55:41 AM |
PENSACOLA, Fla. - Hurricane Dennis came ashore on the Florida Panhandle and Alabama coast Sunday with a 120-mph fury of blinding squalls, crashing waves and flying debris that followed in the ruinous footprints of Ivan just 10 months ago.
The storm crossed land about 3:25 p.m. EDT near the same state-line spot where Ivan arrived, pounding beachfronts already painfully exposed by denuded dunes, flattened neighborhoods and piles of rubble that threatened to turn into deadly missiles.
"I'm watching building pieces and signs come off. The storm surge is actually starting to come up," said Nick Zangari, who rode out the storm in his New York Nick's restaurant and bar in downtown Pensacola. "We were hearing like explosions that must have been like air condition units from other buildings smashing to the ground. ... There were parts of buildings and awnings all around."
Streets in the communities of Pensacola Beach, Fort Walton Beach and Gulf Shores, Ala., were all but deserted as few residents were willing to brave an expected 18-foot storm surge and up to 15 inches of rain.
White-capped waves spewed four-story geysers over sea walls. Sideways, blinding rain mixed with seawater blew in sheets, toppling roadside signs for hotels and gas stations. A buoy just off shore recorded a wave 35 feet high. Power outages began to take hold across the region almost immediately, with 119,000 out in the Panhandle and 38,000 in coastal Alabama.
Within minutes of the landfall between the western Panhandle towns of Navarre Beach and Pensacola Beach, Gov. Jeb Bush asked his brother, President George Bush, to declare Florida a major disaster area from the fifth hurricane to hit the state in less than a year.
Dennis, already responsible for at least 20 deaths in Caribbean, grew quickly in the open Gulf of Mexico into a 145-mph, Category 4 storm, which would have made it the most powerful storm on record in the Panhandle and Alabama. But as it approached shore, it weakened to a 120-mph Category 3, identical to Ivan, which killed 29 people in the Panhandle alone and caused billions of dollars of damage.
National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield said the distinction between a 3 and a 4 should matter little to those in Dennis' path.
"It's a little bit like the difference between getting run over by an 18-wheeler and a freight train. Neither prospect is good," he said.
As the storm passed, photographer Mari Darr Welch ventured out of her Fort Walton Beach home to take pictures of the effects of the storm. She saw signs blown down, homes flooded, trees and branches flying around. Leaves were splattered against houses. Boats broken loose from their docks were bobbing like toys in the ocean.
"It sounds like the proverbial freight train," Welch said of the storm ."I stepped out on the front porch and got slammed against house by a big gust."
In Panama City, water splashed over the protective seawall and the Frank Nelson drawbridge.
"I think we're going to lose most of our docks ... we'll probably have water intrusion in some of these low-lying buildings," Zehner said. As she watched, the driver of an SUV tried to cross as water lapped two feet over the top of the bridge.
"I've never seen that before," she said.
Perhaps the only positive was that Dennis was a tightly wound, compact storm with hurricane-force winds extending out only 40 miles. But the worst weather was concentrated on the front, eastern edge of the storm where Ivan hit and where blue tarps and scaffolds cover scores of wrecked buildings and more than 3,000 families still rely on government-issued trailers.
High winds and roiling waves ahead of Dennis forced the shutdown of the Escambia Bay Bridge near Pensacola, which became a symbol of Ivan's destruction when a section collapsed and a trucker plunged to his death.
In Gulf Shores, where beachfront buildings are still scarred from Ivan's direct hit, even the police force evacuated their storm shelter. At a news conference, the pastor husband of the area's emergency management director bowed his head and prayed for those who didn't evacuate. "We're in God's hands," he said.
As the storm got closer, most of the preparation stopped and people rushed to get inside. Federal Emergency Management Agency officials said they have medical, water, food and other supplies in place to respond to hard-hit areas quickly.
"It's time now to just hunker down and ride it out," said Randy McDaniel, Emergency Management chief in Florida's Okaloosa County. "It's just a matter of sitting and watching and waiting."
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff warned on NBC's "Meet the Press" that Dennis is "going to have a real whack. ... This is not the kind of thing to play games with. You've got to be ready."
In all, 1.8 million people from Florida to Mississippi had been urged to evacuate, and storm shelters quickly filled up. More than 9,000 people were in shelters Sunday in Florida alone, and others headed to motels and relatives' homes.
Police went through waterfront neighborhoods in coastal Panhandle cities advising residents of the mandatory evacuation orders. In Fort Walton Beach, they didn't have any problem persuading Pat Gosney, who remained in his house across the street from an offshoot of Choctawhatchee Bay during Hurricane Ivan last year.
"That's why we're leaving," Gosney said. "We'll never stay again."
Still, in Pascagoula, Miss., 59-year-old retiree Gerald Duffy was willing to take his chances, even as the skies darkened and Dennis' rains began pelting him on his front porch.
"I've ridden them out before. It won't be my first rodeo," he said.
But Dennis' misery was only beginning for most, with forecasters warning hurricane-force winds may occur as far as 150 to 175 miles inland, threatening widespread power outages as it travels through heavily forested areas of Alabama, Mississippi and western Tennessee.
For some on the Gulf Coast who have been through the cycles of recovery and rebuilding already with Ivan, Dennis seemed more than just a climatological coincidence.
"The good Lord's trying to tell us something or other," said 77-year-old Lesley Hale, among 1,200 residents who rode out the storm at a shelter in Pensacola. "Something's going to give."
Top of Page
|
|
|
|
