http://www.cnn.com/2004/WEATHER/09/1...van/index.html
GULF SHORES, Alabama (CNN) -- In the lethal wake of Hurricane Ivan, a storm that has killed more than 70 people, residents in five coastal states face homes sheared from their pilings, power outages, floodwaters, looters and the threat of a half-ton missing alligator who escaped from a zoo.
Ivan left 60 dead in the Caribbean before it blasted U.S. shores early Thursday near the Alabama resort towns of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach and ripped into the western Florida Panhandle city of Pensacola.
"I've been down here 24 years, and this is the worst I've seen," said Sgt. Al Fryer, a Pensacola police spokesman.
"All beachfront and everything on the waterfont is devastated, and the damage is extreme," he said.
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush spoke about the storm's power.
"Entire houses were taken off their foundations and disappeared because of the storm surge on the barrier islands," he said. "These are newly built luxury homes that don't exist right now."
The U.S. death toll from Ivan, which made landfall with 130 mph (209 kph)winds, stood at 13 -- seven of them in the Florida Panhandle, where the eastern edge of the storm spawned tornadoes well before the eye made landfall.
The Georgia Emergency Management Agency blamed the storm for three deaths: an electrocuted utility worker, a 4-year-old swept away by floodwaters and a person killed by a fallen tree. (Storm impact on states)
In Alabama, a volunteer firefighter died after his vehicle hit a downed tree, said George Grabryan, Lauderdale County Emergency Management Agency 911 director.
The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency reported two storm-related deaths, both men. One died when a tree limb fell while he was helping a neighbor remove another tree limb from a house, and the other died from electrocution as he tried to take an antenna off a power line.
Driver missing from bridge
Tornadoes caused six of Florida's seven deaths in the Panhandle town of Blountstown, west of Tallahassee, and the spring break mecca of Panama City Beach.
A tornado destroyed the Blountstown mobile home of Santana Sullivan and her fiancé.
They returned home to find "a clear lot," she said.
"Everything's gone," she said. "There's nothing left. My car was sitting in the front yard. It's totaled completely."
Among the items lost in their home were the wedding rings Sullivan and her fiancé, Chris Ammonds, planned to exchange next month.
In Santa Rosa County, emergency management officials said a young girl in Milton died when a tree fell on her house.
The fate of a truck driver whose rig plunged off a damaged bridge into Escambia Bay, near Pensacola, remains unknown.
The beach boardwalk in Gulf Shores was destroyed, Police Chief Arthur Bourne said, and homes, hotels and condominiums were ravaged by a storm surge that drove a wall of water over the barrier islands along the Gulf of Mexico.
The city has imposed a 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew, Bourne said. And an indefinite curfew was imposed in Escambia County, which includes Pensacola, authorities said.
Alabama Gov. Bob Riley said officials had been concerned about looting in the hardest-hit areas around Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, which have been heavily developed since Hurricane Frederic in 1979. "But unless you looted out of a boat, it would be very difficult to do," Riley said.
Ivan was reduced to a tropical depression late Thursday after sweeping into north-central Alabama as a tropical storm, knocking out power as far north as Birmingham and Atlanta, Georgia.
More than 1.6 million people in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Louisiana were reported without power early Friday.
President Bush declared major disaster areas in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana, making federal funding and aid available to residents of those states affected by the storm.
Island flooded
In Gulf Shores, the Alabama Gulf Shores Zoo was in shambles, with the waterlogged ground littered with pieces of wood and other debris. Most of the animals were evacuated before the storm, but authorities were looking for several deer and six alligators that hadn't been evacuated and have been seen wading -- or swimming -- around the flooded island.
Among them is "Chuckie," a 1,000-pound, 12-foot-long reptile, and zoo officials spent three hours fruitlessly searching for the animal by canoe Thursday afternoon.
"We cannot send people in to assess more of the damages until we find the big boy," one zoo worker said.
Across the mouth of Mobile Bay, authorities reported Dauphin Island had sustained extensive damage to structures over the entire island, Alabama Emergency Management Agency Director Bruce Baughman said. The island was hit hard by Hurricane Frederic, "and as with 1979, they've got sand covering the entire island."
GULF SHORES, Alabama (CNN) -- In the lethal wake of Hurricane Ivan, a storm that has killed more than 70 people, residents in five coastal states face homes sheared from their pilings, power outages, floodwaters, looters and the threat of a half-ton missing alligator who escaped from a zoo.
Ivan left 60 dead in the Caribbean before it blasted U.S. shores early Thursday near the Alabama resort towns of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach and ripped into the western Florida Panhandle city of Pensacola.
"I've been down here 24 years, and this is the worst I've seen," said Sgt. Al Fryer, a Pensacola police spokesman.
"All beachfront and everything on the waterfont is devastated, and the damage is extreme," he said.
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush spoke about the storm's power.
"Entire houses were taken off their foundations and disappeared because of the storm surge on the barrier islands," he said. "These are newly built luxury homes that don't exist right now."
The U.S. death toll from Ivan, which made landfall with 130 mph (209 kph)winds, stood at 13 -- seven of them in the Florida Panhandle, where the eastern edge of the storm spawned tornadoes well before the eye made landfall.
The Georgia Emergency Management Agency blamed the storm for three deaths: an electrocuted utility worker, a 4-year-old swept away by floodwaters and a person killed by a fallen tree. (Storm impact on states)
In Alabama, a volunteer firefighter died after his vehicle hit a downed tree, said George Grabryan, Lauderdale County Emergency Management Agency 911 director.
The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency reported two storm-related deaths, both men. One died when a tree limb fell while he was helping a neighbor remove another tree limb from a house, and the other died from electrocution as he tried to take an antenna off a power line.
Driver missing from bridge
Tornadoes caused six of Florida's seven deaths in the Panhandle town of Blountstown, west of Tallahassee, and the spring break mecca of Panama City Beach.
A tornado destroyed the Blountstown mobile home of Santana Sullivan and her fiancé.
They returned home to find "a clear lot," she said.
"Everything's gone," she said. "There's nothing left. My car was sitting in the front yard. It's totaled completely."
Among the items lost in their home were the wedding rings Sullivan and her fiancé, Chris Ammonds, planned to exchange next month.
In Santa Rosa County, emergency management officials said a young girl in Milton died when a tree fell on her house.
The fate of a truck driver whose rig plunged off a damaged bridge into Escambia Bay, near Pensacola, remains unknown.
The beach boardwalk in Gulf Shores was destroyed, Police Chief Arthur Bourne said, and homes, hotels and condominiums were ravaged by a storm surge that drove a wall of water over the barrier islands along the Gulf of Mexico.
The city has imposed a 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew, Bourne said. And an indefinite curfew was imposed in Escambia County, which includes Pensacola, authorities said.
Alabama Gov. Bob Riley said officials had been concerned about looting in the hardest-hit areas around Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, which have been heavily developed since Hurricane Frederic in 1979. "But unless you looted out of a boat, it would be very difficult to do," Riley said.
Ivan was reduced to a tropical depression late Thursday after sweeping into north-central Alabama as a tropical storm, knocking out power as far north as Birmingham and Atlanta, Georgia.
More than 1.6 million people in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Louisiana were reported without power early Friday.
President Bush declared major disaster areas in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana, making federal funding and aid available to residents of those states affected by the storm.
Island flooded
In Gulf Shores, the Alabama Gulf Shores Zoo was in shambles, with the waterlogged ground littered with pieces of wood and other debris. Most of the animals were evacuated before the storm, but authorities were looking for several deer and six alligators that hadn't been evacuated and have been seen wading -- or swimming -- around the flooded island.
Among them is "Chuckie," a 1,000-pound, 12-foot-long reptile, and zoo officials spent three hours fruitlessly searching for the animal by canoe Thursday afternoon.
"We cannot send people in to assess more of the damages until we find the big boy," one zoo worker said.
Across the mouth of Mobile Bay, authorities reported Dauphin Island had sustained extensive damage to structures over the entire island, Alabama Emergency Management Agency Director Bruce Baughman said. The island was hit hard by Hurricane Frederic, "and as with 1979, they've got sand covering the entire island."
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