Hurricane Dennis 3 years ago

[docjoe]

3 years ago Hurricane Dennis made landfall in an area still reeling from Ivan. Although small in size and quick moving it certainly added insult to injury for those of us in Santa Rosa County at that time. I remember watching television that morning when it was still at 145 MPH truly hoping it did not make landfall at that intensity. It made landfall as a Cat 3 which was certainly bad enough. It certainly gave me more trees to cut up and got me a shiny new roof....little did we know it was just a harbinger of things to come later that year

docjoe

[MGC]

Yep, old Dennis had me worried there for a while. I'll be out on Santa Rosa Island tomorrow getting ready to watch the Blue Angles on Saturday......MGC

[Noles2006]

Dennis... what a beast! I'll never forget this one... produced the largest storm surge in the last 40+ years in Apalachee Bay, about 200 miles to the east of where Dennis made landfall.

I know where my parents live, Oyster Bay [near Shell Point], the surge was at least 10 feet, probably closer to 12. They stayed home for the storm and took some amazing photos/videos.

[hurricanetrack]

While this video I shot was not amazing, it was from a battered Gulf Shores, Alabama area and then points east towards the AL/FL line near Perdido Key. Jesse Bass and I were working on setting up a 5-meter wind tower until he got very sick and had to evacuate north in to Baldwin county. So, I remained on the west, and weaker side, of Dennis with this video to share....

http://www.hurricanetrack.com/dennisgssudduth.wmv

[docjoe]

I am not a storm chaser at all but i did shoot video during Dennis. i was about 9-10 miles inland as the crow flies in the direct path of the eye wall. i shot video of trees being pulled from the ground.i watched one literally fly over the tree line in my yard and disappear.i had footage of pieces of my roof come off. probably the only time in my life i will get TV grade footage. the next day i went out with the camcorder to film the damage to my house for insurance purposes. i found out that night that i accidentally recorded over the entire part of the film that had the eye wall and eye. still makes me sick to this day

docjoe

[hurricanetrack]

Try losing 9 hours of ground-breaking, extremely stable, fixed camera footage of Katrina's full onslaught in Gulfport, Mississippi. Now try to comprehend that times 3. That's what happened to Mike Watkins and I as we set out three remote camera boxes to record the record surge at point blank range. We know we recorded it, but we lost the boxes in the debris. Ended up finding one of them, the one we left on the back steps of the (former) First Baptist Church right on Hwy 90. Come to discover that I had the wrong RCA cable feeding in to the recording unit and we got blank blue screen for 9 hours. It would have been better to just never have found that one box. The other two are missing to this day- and we know they succeeded in recording the surge. It's tough- sometimes the hurricanes win in more ways than one.

[cag1953]

3 years ago Hurricane Dennis made landfall in an area still reeling from Ivan. Although small in size and quick moving it certainly added insult to injury for those of us in Santa Rosa County at that time. I remember watching television that morning when it was still at 145 MPH truly hoping it did not make landfall at that intensity. It made landfall as a Cat 3 which was certainly bad enough. It certainly gave me more trees to cut up and got me a shiny new roof....little did we know it was just a harbinger of things to come later that year

docjoe

This is the first major hurricane that we decided to ride out(although we left Gulf Breeze for a hotel up next to University Mall). The water scares me more than the wind! But I remember we were regretting our decision that morning when Steve Lyons said there was a good chance that Dennis could come in as a cat 5. Since we were on the west side it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be,but as you said, it added insult to injury! I know it was worse east of us. My daughter lives in the Midway area and they figured the eye about came over their house. The damage was worse out that way.


MGC-Enjoy the air show! The Blues are great,they give me goose bumps after all these years! You'll probably pass within a mile of our house going to the beach. Hope it stays dry for you!

[Extremeweatherguy]

A few Hurricane Dennis Youtube Videos...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIqftfAa960
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3kue9WtfsY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmWw-ot13Io
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS7uPQNEsCU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS7uPQNEsCU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2f2U94CSEw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGhzR8piQCQ

[Jason_B]

I am not a storm chaser at all but i did shoot video during Dennis. i was about 9-10 miles inland as the crow flies in the direct path of the eye wall. i shot video of trees being pulled from the ground.i watched one literally fly over the tree line in my yard and disappear.i had footage of pieces of my roof come off. probably the only time in my life i will get TV grade footage. the next day i went out with the camcorder to film the damage to my house for insurance purposes. i found out that night that i accidentally recorded over the entire part of the film that had the eye wall and eye. still makes me sick to this day

docjoe

I'm not that far from where you are docjoe, I live in the Pace area. We were right in the eastern eyewall as winds were out of the north. That was the first time I've experienced a big hurricane in broad daylight and the scene was much like you described. I saw the last 4 trees Ivan left in our back yard get uprooted and watched as my neighbor across the street lose his garage door and chimney. Thankfully that storm was moving at a pretty good speed when it hit unlike Ivan or else it could've been a lot worse. Dennis will always be underrated because of it's small size and mostly not affecting the major communities but us here in Santa Rosa county won't forget that one.

[yzerfan]

It really was a best possible track at the end. 15-20 miles to either the east or west and it would have hit Pensacola or Ft. Walton Beach full on. Instead, it made landfall at the least inhabited part of the area and Santa Rosa Island and Naval Live Oaks (national seashore area) took a lot of the worst of it.

Yes, there was some bad damage I don't want to play down, but a direct hit on Pensacola would have been a lot worse.

[docjoe]

It really was a best possible track at the end. 15-20 miles to either the east or west and it would have hit Pensacola or Ft. Walton Beach full on. Instead, it made landfall at the least inhabited part of the area and Santa Rosa Island and Naval Live Oaks (national seashore area) took a lot of the worst of it.

Yes, there was some bad damage I don't want to play down, but a direct hit on Pensacola would have been a lot worse.

overall i agree it would have been worse for more people but for navarre, pace, milton, garcon point, etc it was bad enough. i guess hurricanes play by the real estate mantra of location location location!!!

docjoe