الارشيف - Hurricane Dennis

Pages: 1

Hurricane Dennis
(انقر هنا ان احببت مشاهدة الموضوع الاصلي بالالوان و الصور )

Posted by: king loverboy

Hurricane Dennis closed in on the Gulf Coast on Sunday after strengthening into a dangerous Category 4 storm, plowing toward a region still recovering from a hurricane 10 months ago.

With nearly 1.4 million people under evacuation orders, some towns in the projected path were left almost deserted. Landfall was expected Sunday afternoon somewhere along the coast of the Florida Panhandle, Alabama or Mississippi, where tropical-storm force winds of 45 mph were already being felt.

After weakening to a Category 1 storm over Cuba, Dennis strengthened in the Gulf on Saturday and became a Category 4 storm again early Sunday, with sustained winds of 145 mph.
Category 4 is not just a little bit worse — it’s much worse,” said Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami. “Damage increases exponentially as the wind speed increases. And no matter where it makes actual landfall, it’s going to have a tremendous impact well away from the center.”

Dennis’ expected landfall would be the earliest a Category 4 hurricane has hit the United States since Hurricane Audrey struck the Louisiana and Texas coasts in June 1957, according to the hurricane center. The center has no record of a Category 4 storm ever hitting Florida’s Panhandle or Alabama.

Blamed for at least 20 deaths in Haiti and Cuba, Dennis carried a threat of more than a half-foot of rain plus waves and a storm surge up to 15 feet in the same area that was pummeled by Hurricane Ivan last September.

“I think there is a legitimate feeling, ‘Why me? What did I do wrong?”’ Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said.

Before entering the Gulf, Dennis swung around the Florida Keys and dealt a glancing blow, flooding streets and knocking out power. As night fell Saturday and the first bands of rain started hitting Fort Walton Beach, nearly every business was closed.

One exception was Joe and Eddie’s, a diner providing short breaks for sheriff’s deputies working 12-hour shifts. “It’s the only place around that’s open,” deputy Jim Welch said.

About 700,000 people were under evacuation orders in Florida, as were 500,000 in Alabama and 190,000 in Mississippi. Traffic doubled on some highways as people fled inland. Alabama officials turned Interstate 65 into a one-way route north from the coast to Montgomery.

In Pensacola, a 70-year-old man at a special needs shelters died, but it appeared to be due to natural causes, Escambia County sheriff’s investigator Terry Kilgore said.

In Panama City, Fla., the only businesses open Saturday evening were a few chain restaurants and a strip club. Destin was also a ghost town, its famous beach empty during the afternoon despite sunny skies. Restaurants and shops normally packed with summer tourists were mostly boarded up.

'I'm here, I'm staying here'
In downtown Pensacola, Nick Zangari planned to keep his restaurant and bar open even as the storm made landfall.

“This building’s been here over 100 years,” Zangari said. “I’m here, I’m staying here.”

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 convincing 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.”

At 9 a.m. ET, Dennis’ eye was about 125 miles south-southeast of Pensacola in the Panhandle and 175 miles southeast of Pascagoula, Miss. It was moving north at about 16 mph and expected to turn more to the northwest before landfall, forecasters said.

In the southern tip of Florida early Sunday, power was back to more than three-quarters of the 428,000 homes and businesses who had outages when Dennis’ eye passed 125 miles to the west of Key West a day earlier.

“We were lucky, no doubt about it,” said Jim Hendrick as he picked up branches in front of his house.

Several tornadoes in the Tampa Bay area caused minor damage such as downed trees.

Among the evacuees from the Panhandle were tens of thousands of military personnel, their families and much of the war equipment that officials didn’t want to leave in harm’s way. At Hurlburt Field, not a plane was in sight Saturday.

For Gulf Coast residents, the approaching hurricane was all too familiar.

“I have my moments of bitterness, but I’m OK,” said Andrea Walter of Gulf Breeze, whose house was seriously damaged by Ivan. “You can’t get too discouraged or you’ll go crazy.”

موقع زيدل سوريا حمص .. خدمات تشات و دردشة ... أرشيف المنتدى