July 11, 2005
By ALLEN G. BREED
The Associated Press
Washington Post

Photo: The I-10 exit sign is modified Sunday morning to warn motorists of highway closings for Hurricane Dennis. (Pensacola News Journal)

PENSACOLA, Fla. -- Hurricane Dennis roared quickly through the Florida Panhandle and Alabama coast Sunday with a 120-mph bluster of blinding squalls and crashing waves, but shellshocked residents emerged to find far less damage than when Ivan took nearly the same path 10 months ago.

Photo: Markus Denes looks up at at his Villa Venyce rental home that had its roof torn off Sunday during Hurricane Dennis. "I’m just lucky to be alive," Denes said. Just after going back inside from checking out the eye of the storm his roof was torn off. (Pensacola News Journal)

The tightly wound Dennis, which had been a Category 4, 145-mph monster as it marched up the Gulf of Mexico, weakened just before it struck less than 50 miles east of where Ivan came ashore. And despite downed power lines and outages affecting more than half a million people, early reports indicated no deaths and relatively modest structural damage.

Photo: A tree lies on a crushed FEMA trailer Sunday along Bay Street in Villa Venyce after Hurricane Dennis. The trailers belong to Rose and Dana Cromer, who lost their home in Hurricane Ivan and much of their personal belongings in the April floods. (Pensacola News Journal)

"We're really happy it was compact and that it lasted only so long," said Mike Decker, who lost only some shingles and a privacy fence at his home near where the storm came ashore. "It was more of a show for the kids."

The storm indeed put on a show as it blew ashore at 3:25 p.m. EDT midway between the western Panhandle towns of Pensacola Beach and Navarre Beach.

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. Waves offshore exceeded 30 feet, and in downtown Pensacola, the gulf spilled over sidewalks eight blocks inland. Boats broke loose and bobbed like toys in the roiling ocean.

Photo: Rashad Dixon, 15, catches some sleep in the shelter at Bethlehem Primitive Baptist Church as the first tropical winds of Hurricane Dennis arrive. (Pensacola News Journal)

But Dennis, which was responsible for at least 20 deaths in the Caribbean, spared those to the north because of its relatively small size and fast pace. Hurricane winds stretched only 40 miles from the center, compared with 105 miles for Ivan, and Dennis tore through at nearly 20 mph, compared to Ivan's 13 mph.

Rainfall was measured at 8 inches, rather than the expected foot.

"With Ivan, the damage area was probably more spread out and wider than it was for Dennis," National Hurricane Center meteorologist Michelle Mainelli said.

Dennis caused an estimated $1 billion to $2.5 billion in insured damage in the United States, according to AIR Worldwide Corp. of Boston, an insurance risk modeling company.

Photo: Workers prepare a building on Intendencia Street in downtown Pensacola in preparation for Hurricane Dennis. (Pensacola News Journal)

Ivan, which also had top winds of 120 mph, killed 29 people in the Panhandle and caused more than $7 billion damage in the Southeast. Mindful of that experience, more than 1.8 million coastal residents from Florida to Mississippi were urged to evacuate in advance of Dennis, leaving streets in most beach towns deserted.

Even Mark Sigler of Pensacola Beach, who owns a dome-shaped, steel-reinforced house built to withstand 200-mph winds, decided to evacuate.

"The house is hurricane-resistant," he said, "not hurricane-proof."

But hours after Dennis' landfall, Florida emergency operations officials said they had no reports of storm-related deaths. In Alabama, Gulf Shores and Orange Beach officials said they had no reports of significant damage.

In Alabama, a man was injured by a falling tree branch in Escambia County, said April Sells, a tribal emergency management director for the Poarch Creek Indians at the reservation north of Atmore. Workers also evacuated an elderly man after a possible tornado took the roof off his home, Sells said.

Photo: A Scenic Highway home is shown with a roof damaged by Hurricane Dennis Sunday. (Pensacola News Journal)

A scan of the area between Navarre Beach and Pensacola Beach showed relatively little damage, with the expected ripped-apart gas station awnings and overturned sheds but few downed power lines and trees.

The normally placid blue Gulf was still churned into a tea-colored froth, but few homes, even along the shore, appeared to have sustained extensive flooding. Neighborhoods along the Gulf showed only intermittent debris. The only seriously compromised roofs along U.S. 98 had blue tarps on them, and appeared to be left over damage from last year's hurricane Ivan.

Frank Larker happily waded out to his three-story gulf-front home in Navarre that was flooded only in the ground-floor garage and laundry room. The living quarters above were unscathed.
His was the only home in his Navarre Shores neighborhood that was habitable after Ivan. He finished the last of the repairs five weeks ago. "I've lived here 23 years. I've been through several hurricanes and I just keep patching up. I guess I'll patch it up again. It's still worth living here," said the 65-year-old real estate developer. "I feel lucky. I was expecting to not even have a house."

In Escambia County, which includes Pensacola, Commissioner Mike Whitehead said initial reports indicated some broken windows, trees and power lines down, minor flooding in the city and a few trees falling on houses.

"Because of where it went in, we missed a real close shot. It went into a relatively unpopulated area," Whitehead said. "If that thing had shifted 20 miles to the west, we'd have been in trouble, but we got real lucky."

In Alabama's coastal Baldwin County, which was ground zero for Ivan last year, officials also breathed a sigh of relief.

Photo: Trees bend as the eyewall of Hurricane Dennis approaches S.S. Dixon Intermediate School in Pace. (Pensacola News Journal)

"We dodged a bullet," said emergency management director Leigh Anne Ryals, whose pastor husband led a prayer at a news conference hours before the storm.

The biggest problem was power outages, which affected more than 236,700 homes and businesses in the Panhandle, some 280,000 in Alabama and at least 5,000 people in Mississippi. Gulf Power Co., the main power utility for the western Panhandle, said customers should be prepared to do without electricity for three weeks or more.

Another problem Sunday was around the low-lying fishing village of St. Marks, about 20 miles south of Tallahassee. A tidal surge of 10 to 12 feet caused extensive flooding and knocked out about 40 miles of coastal U.S. Highway 98. There was also widespread flooding in nearby coastal homes, but there will not be a full assessment of damage until Monday.

Dennis became the fifth hurricane to strike Florida in less than 11 months, and President Bush soon declared parts of the state a major federal disaster along with coastal Alabama and Mississippi.

Photo: Waves from Hurricane Dennis crash into homes along the waterfront of the Santa Rosa Sound in Navarre next to the beach bridge Sunday, July 10, 2005. (Pensacola News Journal)

By 11 p.m., Dennis had weakened to a tropical storm over southwest Alabama with 65 mph winds. As it moved northward, the hurricane's next-biggest threat _ tornadoes _ took over. Tornado watches and warnings were posted as far north as Atlanta.

Photo: Bill and Ginny Bryant try to see their home on Thresher Drive off US 98 in Navarre, Sunday, July 10, 2005, after Hurricane Dennis. The couple was unable to reach the home that sits near the Santa Rosa Sound because of high water covering the street and their yard. (Pensacola News Journal)

Forecasters also warned that Dennis could dump up to 8 inches of rain as it travels over the next few days through Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee into the Ohio Valley.

Escambia County Administrator George Touart said crews were poised to begin cleanup work as soon as it was safe to be on the road. After all, the hurricane season is still young, and a new tropical depression formed Sunday in the open Atlantic.

"We're not sure if we're in phase two of Ivan cleanup or phase one of this cleanup," Touart said. "The bottom line is between Dennis and Ivan, we'll get this place cleaned up."
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Associated Press writers Bill Kaczor in Pensacola, Mark Long in Panama City, Bob Johnson in Robertsdale, Ala., Garry Mitchell in Mobile, Ala., and David Royse in Fort Walton Beach contributed to this report.

On the Net: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

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