PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) — Late yesterday, President Bush declared a “major disaster” in the portions of Florida, Alabama and Mississippi hit hardest by Hurricane Dennis and ordered federal relief beginning immediately.
Dennis had roared onto the Florida Panhandle and Alabama coast yesterday with a 120-mph fury of blinding squalls and crashing waves that followed the ravaged path of Ivan from 10 months ago.
The storm crossed land about 3:25 p.m. near the same spot where Ivan arrived, pounding beachfronts already painfully exposed by denuded dunes, flattened neighborhoods and piles of rubble that turned into deadly missiles.
“I’m watching building pieces and signs come off,” said Nick Zangari, who rode out the storm in his New York Nick’s restaurant and bar in downtown Pensacola. “We were hearing explosions that must have been air-conditioning units from other buildings smashing to the ground. … There were parts of buildings and awnings all around.”
The storm claimed its first reported U.S. victim when a 3-year-old Florida boy was killed after he fell from a van while evacuating the coast. But officials in Alabama and Florida reported no deaths directly from the storm.
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. Despite downed power lines and outages affecting nearly a half-million people, early reports indicated no deaths and relatively modest structural damage.
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 15-foot storm surge and up to a foot of rain.
White-capped waves spewed four-story geysers over sea walls. Blinding rain mixed with seawater blew sideways in sheets, toppling roadside signs for hotels and gas stations. A buoy just off shore recorded a wave 35 feet high.
Power outages began almost immediately after the storm made landfall, with 140,000 homes and businesses without electricity in Florida, most in the Panhandle, and 80,000 affected in coastal Alabama.
Florida’s Gulf Power Co. expected more to come, and said its more than 400,000 customers should be prepared to be without electricity for three weeks or more.
Dennis was the fifth hurricane to hit Florida in less than a year. Already responsible for at least 20 deaths in the Caribbean, the storm 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 persons in the Panhandle and caused billions of dollars of damage.
National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield said the distinction between a Category 3 and a Category 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.
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.
Forecasters also warned that hurricane-force winds may occur 150 miles inland, along with the threat of up to a foot of rain as Dennis travels north through Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee. The storm system is expected to move into the Ohio Valley by Wednesday, when it could begin influencing weather in the Washington metro region.
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 last year.
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 yesterday in Florida alone, and others headed to motels and relatives’ homes.
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