Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies

Twisters in Jackson County hit federal prison, call center

MARIANNA - Two tornadoes in Jackson County damaged a federal prison and destroyed a 100,000-square-foot call center near Cypress.

No problems were reported at the prison in Marianna, as inmates were locked down in their housing units during the storm.

At Brogdon Trailer Park, a dozen trailers were damaged.

Edie Kearns, 52, had left the night before to stay with her daughter in Dothan, Ala. When she saw her home, Kearns said: "I lost everything I own. I got my purse and that's it.

"Something told me to leave. Something told me to leave," she repeated.

The storm pushed bands of drenching rainstorms into Georgia and the Carolinas, knocking out power as far away as the suburbs of Atlanta. The National Weather Service issued a flood watch for as far away as North Carolina.

PANAMA CITY BEACH - Mark Rush remembers Hurricane Opal in 1995. He remembers the rain, the wind and the storm surge, but no tornadoes.

Now, when he thinks of hurricanes, Rush will remember how a tornado lifted off the roof of a nearby restaurant and tossed it onto his wife's Ford Explorer.

He hopes people who think that hurricanes are a coastal problem will remember the four people killed in Blountstown.

"You can evacuate, but you can't evacuate from a tornado," said Rush, 51. "It's a crapshoot."

PENSACOLA - At the Bahia Mar Marina at the mouth of Bayou Chico, Bruce Milne looked past the fact that the hurricane had pushed his 27-foot O'Day sailboat over the pier, bending his rudder at a 90-degree angle.

Other sailboats were slammed against pilings and each other.

"I'm very happy right now," said Milne, who calls the boat, "Forever Wild," his home. He rode out the storm with friends on land.

Next door, the Flagship Yachts boat barn had collapsed. More than 300 boats that were stacked four deep in dry dock had collapsed upon one another, like toys thrown into a box.

"My boat could have been in there," he said.

NEW ORLEANS - This city, which is especially vulnerable to storms because much of it lies below sea level, got only some blustery winds, a little rain and some downed tree limbs. By Thursday morning, French Quarter tourists came out of their hotels to sip cafe au lait in the sun.

"I know I'm going to hear from the Monday morning quarterbacks," said New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who had urged the metropolitan area's 1.2-million residents to flee three days ahead of the storm. "Look at the scenes from Mobile and Pensacola - that could have been us."

Mobile, Ala., had its historic oak-tree-lined Government Street blocked with debris.

GULF SHORES, Ala. - Chucky, a 12-foot, half-ton American alligator who had spent the past 15 years here at the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo, has escaped.

Ivan's eye blasted through this resort town Thursday, ripping down the fence around Chucky's pond and converting the 67-acre zoo into waterfront property. Several animals escaped.

A four-man crew armed with shotguns and pistols sloshed through waist-deep water on zoo grounds. "We've got to think of human life first," said zoo director Patty Hall. "But this is just crushing. These animals are our family."

Staff writers Joni James, Tom Zucco and Alisa Ulferts contributed to this report, which used information from the Associated Press.