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Hurricane Dennis

Storm stories

Within an hour of the storm's landing, Mike Decker and his three teenage children were out on the shoreline in Navarre enjoying a stiff breeze.

"We're really happy it was compact and that it lasted only so long," said Decker, who lost only some shingles and a privacy fence. "It was more of a show for the kids."

A scan of the area between Navarre Beach and Pensacola Beach a few hours after the storm passed showed relatively little damage, with the expected ripped-apart gas station awnings and overturned sheds, but few downed power lines and trees.

The normally placid blue Gulf of Mexico was still churned into a tea-colored froth, but few homes, even along the shore, appeared to have sustained extensive flooding.

The only seriously compromised roofs along U.S. 98 had blue tarps on them, and appeared to be leftover damage from last year's Hurricane Ivan.

* * *

Little Flower Catholic Church in Pensacola lost electrical power Sunday afternoon, but priests were able to get news of Hurricane Dennis on a generator-powered television.

Sunday evening Mass was canceled, although two morning services were held as usual. The pastor estimated that two-thirds of the parish's 800 families didn't evacuate and remained behind.

So much rain fell over the church, the priest said, that "I now call it Lake Little Flower."

* * *

Sunday was Escambia County Emergency Management Chief Matt Lopez's third day on the job. He had previously worked for the Florida Division of Emergency Management in St. Petersburg as a disaster field office operations chief.

He breathed a sigh of relief as Dennis passed. The storm caused less damage than Ivan.

"It could have been very much worse. ... We were spared the wrath of an Ivan," Lopez said.

* * *

As the hurricane approached, Sharon Britton, 50, a retired teacher, was staying in a century-old home little more than a block from Pensacola Bay. Her husband, son, daughter, son-in-law and their two children were with her.

"The house has been here since 1900," Britton said. "It survived '08, '27, Erin, Opal, Ivan."

During Hurricane Ivan, the storm surge "came up a couple steps," she said.

Britton says she felt the family was safer at home than at the Pensacola Civic Center shelter, where the roof has been damaged.

The family was putting a new roof on when Hurricane Ivan hit last year. The house suffered water damage, but the family managed to save an upstairs window threatened by the storm.

"If we hadn't been here during Ivan, I might not have a house," Britton said.

[Last modified July 11, 2005, 07:31:04]