PENSACOLA, Fla. (ABP) — Hurricane Ivan — as powerful as Charley and as big as Frances — pounded the Gulf coasts of Alabama and Florida Sept. 15-16 with 130 mph winds.
At least 13 deaths were blamed on Ivan — six of them on the Alabama-Florida coast — including a young girl killed when a tree cut through her family's mobile home, according to news reports.
Ivan is the third powerful hurricane to strike Florida in a month. Unlike Charley and Frances, which hit the Florida peninsula hardest, Ivan unleashed much of its damage on the state's western Panhandle, with a storm surge estimated at 10 feet or more above sea level. The wall of water pushed into the bays and inlets that define this part of the Gulf Coast, stripping the shoreline of low-lying buildings.
The center of the storm slammed ashore in the predawn hours near Gulf Shores, Ala. — halfway between Pensacola and Mobile, along the Florida-Alabama border. The storm's northeast quadrant — the most destructive part of the strong Category 3 hurricane — lashed the low-lying barrier islands and the city of Pensacola. On the western side of the eye, Mobile was spared the worst of the storm, but tree and wind damage was widespread.
Ivan's destruction was catastrophic, reminding many Floridians of 1992's Hurricane Andrew, the most destructive storm in U.S. history. Pensacola residents, most with plenty of hurricane experience, were shocked at the level of devastation. “I didn't imagine it could be this bad” was the oft-repeated summary.
Winds topping 100 miles per hour and the storm surge carved up the oceanfront communities of Dauphin Island, Gulf Shores, Perdido Key and Orange Beach in Alabama, and Gulf Breeze and Pensacola Beach on the Florida side. Damage estimates were incomplete early in the day Sept. 17, as emergency management officials still could not reach some beach communities isolated by damaged bridges.
The storm surge wiped out a major section of Interstate 10 across Escambia Bay during the night. One tractor-trailer and driver reportedly fell into the bay as the bridge collapsed, according to news reports. Other bridges in Florida and Alabama were damaged or closed for inspection, hampering relief workers and preventing many residents from returning.
As electricity went out across the region, those residents who did not heed the evacuation order endured a harrowing night of howling winds, snapping trees and flying debris. They awoke to find much of their city in shambles.
“That was easily the most terrifying night of my life,” said Charles Chamblee, an associate pastor at First Baptist Church of Pensacola, who spent the night in his Pensacola home after sending his wife and two children to Birmingham. “You just knew the next gust was going to send glass flying in.”
“I just got a praise-and-chorus book and laid down with a flashlight and sang praise choruses — tried to bring some peace,” Chamblee said as he inspected the flood damage at the church. Chamblee's house, which he recently sold in preparation for a move to Little Rock, Ark., emerged with almost no damage. Others were not so fortunate.
All over Pensacola, huge oak and pine trees were toppled, many taking out power poles on their way to the ground. As of early Sept. 17, about 1.6 million people in the region, including all of Pensacola, were without electricity, and utility officials estimated it would take three weeks or more to restore all service.
A Gulf Power spokesman pleaded for patience. “It took 80 years to build this [power] system, and in six hours it was almost destroyed,” he said.
Baptist disaster-relief teams from several states have responded to all three recent hurricanes but have been hampered in their work by the back-to-back storms, twice evacuating the state while the capricious storms decided where to strike. No details were available about response plans by press time for this story Sept. 17.
Some of Ivan's worst inland damage occurred along Escambia Bay, which was exposed to the storm's most violent winds.
“I've lived in this house since 1965 and I've not seen anything like it,” said Toni Clevenger, a First Baptist member whose house on historic Scenic Highway sits on a 20-foot bluff looking east over the bay. More than a dozen of her trees were downed, but Clevenger's house was not seriously damaged.
The storm surge and pounding surf carved out about 75 feet of the shoreline but stopped short of Clevenger's house. The realigned waterfront was littered with bricks, shredded trees, broken decking and a few destroyed boats. Next door, Ivan's excavation stopped just two feet shy of a new brick home.
But the worst damage was expected on the narrow, low-lying barrier islands in both states. Helicopter fly-overs indicated virtually every structure on the islands sustained damage.
Jeff Nall was one of the beach residents who evacuated Gulf Breeze. “I would like to try to go to the house,” he said the next day, “but I don't think I'll be able to get over the bridge.” Nall heard from a neighbor via cell phone that his house survived.
Most churches in the region received minor or moderate damage from wind, trees or flooding. But some got worse. At Glad Tidings Assembly of God in Pace, a working-class town northeast of Pensacola, the roof of the sanctuary was blown away.
In downtown Pensacola, Patricia Williams, 47, picked through debris looking for a piece of wood to cover the hole in the side of her house. “That was the worst hurricane I've been through,” the lifelong Pensacola resident said.
Many historic buildings in Pensacola were destroyed, including attorney Peter McDavid's soon-to-be-renovated office building, constructed in 1885. “We rode out [Hurricane] Erin right here in that building, but this is worse than anything I've seen,” McDavid said, pointing to the remnants of the brick building, which faced Pensacola Bay and took the brunt of the storm. Boats from the marina next door were washed up onto the property.
At the historic First Baptist Church, also located downtown downtown, several buildings suffered roof damage. The buildings damaged included the ornate sanctuary, which was flooded from two holes in the tile roof — one over the choir loft and another over the balcony. The roof of an education building had blown off and was lying in a heap on the lawn, mingled with roofing from another building nearby. A brick façade on a wing of the church also was ripped off, sending bricks out into the street.
Looking over the damage to First Baptist, Nall — a church member — seemed relieved. “In the greater scheme of things, it could have been worse,” he said.
First Baptist, with a good track record of weathering hurricanes — including Erin and Opal in 1995 — served as a shelter for the families of police officers from the station next door, who spent the night in the church's activities building. A dozen or more church members also sought refuge elsewhere in the church.
The roof was punctured in several places, causing some flooding. On the west side of the building, where police officers parked 26 cruisers to shield them from the highest winds of the storm's northeastern eye wall, roofing pebbles blew off the building and smashed the windows of 23 of the cruisers.
Nall and other friends rode out the storm on the mainland in the home of church administrator Regina Barrow and her family. Although most residents of Pensacola heeded the evacuation notice, a small percentage stayed.
Barrow said her house is a relatively new structure built since the state's building codes were strengthened — a legacy of 1992's Hurricane Andrew. “We knew it was built to all the new codes, so we were pretty comfortable staying there,” she said.
Barrow said she had heard of no church members injured. “Everybody I've talked to is OK.”
Although the damage in Pensacola was the most severe, Ivan remained at hurricane strength for several hours as it churned further north, deep into Alabama. It continued to cause wind damage and flooding as far inland as Birmingham on Sept. 16.
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— Photos to accompany this story are available.