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Hurricane Dennis pounds storm-scarred U.S. coast

Posted on: Sunday, 10 July 2005, 18:02 CDT

By Marc Serota

PENSACOLA, Fla. (Reuters) - Hurricane Dennis raced ashore on the U.S. Gulf Coast on Sunday with ferocious 120-mph (195 kph) winds and pounding waves that lashed an area still scarred by last year's storms.

Dennis weakened before it made landfall from a powerful Category 4 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale to a Category 3. Officials said the destruction left in the hurricane's wake might be limited somewhat because the storm is moving quickly through the region.

Nevertheless, it was as strong as September's Hurricane Ivan, which came ashore near Pensacola and killed 25 people, caused $14 billion in damages and destroyed or damaged 13 oil drilling platforms in the Gulf.

"I'm pleased that the winds died a bit," said Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, brother of President Bush.

But, paraphrasing U.S. National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield, Bush added: "The difference between a Category 3 and a Category 4 is the difference between being hit by a semi (semi-trailer truck) and a freight train."

The hurricane's eyewall, its intense central core, swept ashore with a storm surge of up to 15 feet at 3:25 p.m. EDT (1925 GMT) on Santa Rosa Island between Navarre Beach and Pensacola Beach, the hurricane center said.

"It's pretty rough. The eyewall came right through and hit us, it looks pretty bad," said Santa Rosa County emergency management spokeswoman Jennifer Terry.

"We were recovering from Ivan and this has hampered that. But we are going to recover from this one."

It was too early to assess damage, but few emergency calls were received during the storm, she said. "People, I think, really did heed the warnings to get out," Terry said.

Officials told more than 1.2 million people to evacuate low-lying areas in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. Power was cut to thousands of customers along the coast, including 78,000 in Alabama, and officials told residents to remain indoors until Monday.

The storm, which killed 32 people in Cuba and Haiti before entering the Gulf of Mexico, weakened to a Category 2 hurricane once it moved inland. But its 105 mph (170 kph) winds still threatened to bring dangerously heavy rainfall to Alabama and eastern Mississippi as it headed to the Ohio Valley.

"People really need to know that this hurricane is not done by any means," Mayfield told CNN.

By 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT), its center was 20 miles north of Pensacola and was moving north at 21 mph (34 kph).

About 2,600 National Guard troops, 700 police and other emergency workers were getting ready to move in for relief operations, Florida state officials said.

Energy companies pulled 2,100 workers off oil rigs and shut down 42 percent of daily crude output and 27 percent of daily natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico, where the United States gets a quarter of its oil and gas.

Producers and infrastructure operators said they could not return to normal operations until Monday.

After it left a trail of death and destruction in the Caribbean, Dennis alarmed coastal residents, some of whom were still rebuilding their homes 10 months after being pummeled by Hurricane Ivan.

Ivan was one of four hurricanes to strike Florida last season in an unprecedented six-week period.

In Pensacola, emergency officials told residents who decided to ride out the storm at home to write their names in waterproof ink across their chests in case they were killed and needed to be identified, WFOR television reported.

Smooth as glass a day before, Pensacola Bay on Sunday turned into a heaving 4- to 6-foot (1.2-meter to 1.8-meter) sea, washing over bridges connecting the outlying island and the Pensacola U.S. Naval Air Station to the mainland.

Before heading north through the Gulf, Dennis brushed the popular tourist island of Key West on Florida's southern tip.

The hurricane hit Cuba on Friday with 150 mph (240 kph) winds and crumpled houses, uprooted trees and downed power lines. Ten people were killed in Cuba and 22 in Haiti.

(Additional reporting by Cathy Donelson in Mobile, Michael Christie, Jane Sutton and Frances Kerry in Miami, Jennifer Portman in Tallahassee, Erwin Seba in Houston and Karen Jacobs in Atlanta)

Source: REUTERS

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