Remembering Hurricane Dennis 10 years later


  • July 9, 2015
  • /   Louis Cooper
  • /   community-dashboard
   

There are names in Northwest Florida that many people would rather forget.

Like Ivan, Opal, and Erin.

A fourth, and most recent, member of that infamous club, Dennis, made its mark on the Panhandle – particularly Santa Rosa County – a decade ago this week. Hurricane Dennis came ashore near Gulf Breeze at about 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, July 10, 2005.

In its summary on Hurricane Dennis, the National Weather Service calls the storm “an unusually strong July major hurricane that left a trail of destruction from the Caribbean Sea to the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico.”

{{business_name}} Hurricane Dennis was bearing down on the Gulf Coast of the United States on July 10, 2005, at 12:15 p.m. when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on NASA's Terra satellite captured this image. With winds of 140 miles per hour (225 kph), Dennis was a powerful Category 4 storm just hours away from making landfall. At the time this image was taken, the eye of the storm was about 55 miles (90 kilometers) south, southeast of Pensacola, Florida, and the storm was moving northwest at about 18 miles per hour (29 kph). The size of the storm put clouds of rain over most of the southeastern United States well before the storm came ashore. In this image, Dennis covers all of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and stretches over parts of Louisiana. The northern fringes of the storm appear to be over Tennessee and North Carolina. For additional information and warnings about this storm, please visit the National Hurricane Center. This image is available in additional resolutions from the MODIS Rapid Response Team.

Hurricane Dennis was bearing down on the Gulf Coast of the United States on July 10, 2005, at 12:15 p.m. With winds of 140 miles per hour, Dennis was a powerful Category 4 storm just hours away from making landfall at the time of this photo. This image shows the eye of the storm was about 55 miles south, southeast of Pensacola, Florida, and the storm was moving northwest at about 18 miles per hour.

The storm produced a storm surge of about 7 feet, over-washing Santa Rosa Island near Navarre Beach and causing coastal flooding as far east as Apalachee Bay. Locally, it produced peak wind gusts of up to 120 mph and 7.6 inches of rain.

For those in Dennis’ path, one of the storm’s most shocking aspects was that it came so close on the heels Hurricane Ivan, which had stuck on Sept. 16, 2004.

“Ten months later, Dennis zeroed in on Santa Rosa County with 130 mph winds,” said Gulf Power spokesman Jeff Rogers. “Luckily, it was a compact and fast-moving storm, clearing the area within hours. (There was) severe damage to much of the same areas as Ivan and in some areas greater damage, although infrastructure damage overall was not as great.”

Dennis left 65 percent of Gulf Power’s customers, including 56,000 in Santa Rosa County and 100,000 in Escambia, without electricity. Power was restored within seven days to structures capable of receiving power. Ivan had left 90 percent of Gulf Power customers without power for up to 13 days.

Santa Rosa County Administrator Hunter Walker said he felt as if Santa Rosa suffered alone from Dennis whereas Ivan had been a regional event.

“The damage was more localized in Santa Rosa County whereas Ivan was a larger, seemingly more impactful event certainly in both Escambia and Santa Rosa counties,” Walker said. “The storm surge of Ivan damaged all the highway and roadway connections between the two counties, where Dennis did not, so it did not specifically add to the ‘misery index’ of residents. Certainly people outside the county seemed to have little awareness of Dennis, as opposed to Ivan.”

Dennis damage was more limited to wind-related items like roofs and some agricultural structures, whereas Ivan had left thousands of homes in coastal areas flooded from its 16-foot surge. Walker said Dennis damaged more county buildings than Ivan, including the county courthouse, public defender’s office and clerk archives, all in downtown Milton.

“Dennis was primarily a wind event which generated a great deal of damage to trees, foliage, etc," Walker said. "Also, parks that were damaged by Ivan — fences, backstops, dugout and bleacher covers — were replaced or in the process of being replaced when Dennis came through and re-damaged (them).

In all, 10 Florida counties were declared eligible for FEMA individual assistance programs: Santa Rosa, Escambia, Okaloosa, Bay, Dixie, Franklin, Gulf, Taylor, Wakulla and Walton. In Dennis' wake, 38,852 people applied for individual assistance programs. Residents of the federally-designated counties received $6,618,037 in housing assistance and $14,899,295 in other FEMA help.

Affected people and businesses were approved for $32.6 million in U.S. Small Business Administration low-interest disaster loans.

Damage in the U.S. from Hurricane Dennis topped $2.5 billion, according to the National Weather Service.

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