Hurricane Dennis Swipes Florida Keys

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Hurricane Dennis Swipes Florida Keys

By CORALIE CARLSON, Associated Press Writer

15 minutes ago

KEY WEST, Fla. - Coastal residents packed up and evacuated or were hunkered down early Saturday as Hurricane Dennis lashed the Florida Keys with wind and rain and churned along a path toward areas still rebuilding from last year's storms.

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Key West residents who didn't heed an evacuation order covered their windows with plywood and attended the island's famous hurricane parties. Landfall was expected Sunday or Monday anywhere from the Florida Panhandle to southeast Louisiana.

"When this kind of weather happens, its a chance for locals to see who's going to tough it out with them," said David Noessle, who watched surfers in the hurricane-spawned waves on his way home from a party.

The storm, the earliest to reach Category 4 strength in the Caribbean on record, was expected to bring up to 8 inches of rain and 6-foot storm surges Saturday. It was blamed for at least 10 deaths in Cuba and 10 in Haiti.

The storm decreased in strength to Category 1 after passing over Cuba, but strengthened again as it moved over open water into a Category 2, with top winds of 105 mph.

Much of Key West was without power Saturday morning as the hurricane passed west of the island, producing stinging rain and wind gusts that buckled windows. Tree branches, plywood and other debris littered the streets, and awnings hung precariously from storefronts.

"We're holding up," Key West Mayor Jimmy Weekley said. "The biggest damage right now of course is the power being off."

Key West police said four women had to be rescued after a tree fell and trapped them in a house; no injuries were reported.

About a half-million people in coastal Alabama and tens of thousands more in the Keys and low-lying areas of the Florida Gulf Coast were told to evacuate. Alabama officials were turning Interstate 65 into a one-way route north from the coast to Montgomery.

"All day long all of our phones have been ringing. The only thing we can tell people is that we are sold out," said Lasonya Lewis, a clerk at a Montgomery hotel.

Normally busy shops in Key West were boarded up and one liquor store had a sign that read: "Dennis Don't Be a Menace." Still, a few places were open to feed the holdouts.

"We've never been in a hurricane before, or even near one," said David Keeley of Peterborough, England, who drank at Sloppy Joe's bar and made plans to go back to his hotel with his wife, "lock the door, pull the blinds and hope for the best."

"If the power stays on, we've got the TV. We've got the minibar. We've got each other," he said.

Myra Gamblin, whose home in Pace, Fla., was heavily damaged by Hurricane Ivan last September, said the storms were wearing on her nerves. "We finally got everything repaired in January and here we go again in July," she said.

At 7 a.m. EDT, Dennis' eye was about 95 miles west-southwest of Key West, or roughly 520 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River. It was moving northwest at about 14 mph, and should reach the southeastern Gulf of Mexico by Saturday morning, forecasters said.

Many in Dennis' strike zone were aware that it was following nearly in the path of Ivan, which came ashore at the Florida-Alabama line, causing 29 deaths and $4 billion damage in the Panhandle alone.

Mitch Lamb had lived in a government-issued travel trailer while his home was being repaired and only recently moved back. About 9,300 other trailers were still in use by Floridians whose homes were damaged or destroyed by the hurricanes.

As he packed up his belongings Friday, Lamb was ready to give up on his Gulf Breeze home after spending $70,000 out of his own pocket on repairs.

"I hope this house is gone when I get back because I do not want to go through it again," he said. "We'll just sell the waterfront property and take the loss."

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wow. that sounds dreadful for the ppl living there. I wish I could help in some way this year ... :shakehead:

peace,

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