Cleanup on as Hurricane Dennis heads north

PENSACOLA, Florida - Relief crews rushed in water and ice and searchers scoured houses for victims as northwest Florida cleaned up yesterday after Hurricane Dennis battered a region still recovering from last year's storms.

Dennis hurtled ashore with 190-kph winds, crushing some beachfront homes, ripping off roofs, felling power lines and contributing to at least nine deaths. Initial estimates of insured damages ranged up to US$5 billion.

Despite fears among coastal residents of a repeat of the widespread damage from September's Hurricane Ivan, Dennis delivered a less-punishing blow and weakened rapidly as it sped inland.

"We dodged the bullet on the most part although our beach has suffered badly again," said Sara Comander, a spokeswoman for Walton County east of Pensacola.

Dennis was downgraded to a tropical depression, a gusty mass of thunderstorms, as it spread over Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois and Indiana.

Farmers in drought-stricken Illinois and other parts of the eastern US Midwest were hoping the storm's remnants would bring much-needed moisture to parched corn and soybean fields.

Dennis may have caused US$1 billion to US$2.5 billion of damage to insured property, according to initial estimates from risk assessment company AIR Worldwide Corp. Another company, Risk Management Solutions estimated insured losses at US$1 billion to US$5 billion.

Oil and gas producers began sending crews back into the Gulf of Mexico to restart platforms shut down by the storm. At least 42 per cent of the region's daily oil production and 27 per cent of daily natural-gas output had been briefly halted.

The hurricane cut power to almost half a million customers along the Gulf coast. Gulf Power, the electricity provider for much of the Florida Panhandle, said it could take up to two weeks to restore power to everyone.

Rescue teams scoured through areas where people refused to evacuate and National Guard units hauled in ice, water and clean-up supplies.

Florida state officials reported four storm deaths, including a young boy killed when his parents drove into him while evacuating their Walton County home. A man was electrocuted in Fort Lauderdale, a 13-year-old boy in Nassau County and a 55-year-old man in Escambia County.

In addition, the Florida Highway Patrol said three bodies were found in a car that skidded on a flooded road and overturned in a water-filled ditch near Port Charlotte.

In the Atlanta area, a tree limb crashed into a home and killed a man sleeping inside, emergency officials said.

Mississippi officials said there was one hurricane-related death in a car wreck near the Alabama border.

In Destin, near where Dennis's powerful core struck the coast, virtually every unit in apartment buildings lining the beach had some damage.

"Our house should have been condemned after Hurricane Ivan. It'll definitely be condemned now," said Steve Sybiski, who with his wife Caryn surveyed damage to their Destin home.

A boardwalk, rebuilt after Ivan, was destroyed and washed beneath a restaurant. The storm eroded the beach, carving out a 9-metre cliff in the sand.

"One house, a nice one, is in the Gulf now," said Kathleen Mitnacca, an emergency management spokeswoman in Okaloosa County. In nearby Niceville, service stations were destroyed, gas pumps were snapped off and the smell of petrol hung heavy in the air.

At Crystal Beach, the massive storm surge that invaded houses spilled like waterfalls from those homes a day later. Children played in the surf near dangling wood, broken glass and debris as sightseers snapped pictures of the destruction.

WORST FLOODING

Some of the worst flooding was to the east in the tiny fishing town of St. Marks, near Tallahassee, where chest-deep water flowed through the streets and then receded. Boaters rescued people stranded in their homes by rising water.

Dennis killed 32 people in a rampage through the Caribbean last week - 10 in Cuba and 22 in Haiti. Before it hit land on Santa Rosa Island east of Pensacola, it weakened from a category 4 hurricane to a category 3 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale.

In terms of wind speed, Dennis was as strong as Ivan, which killed 25 people and caused US$14 billion in damage. But Dennis was more compact and moved rapidly over land, limiting damage.

- REUTERS