Dennis Pounds Gulf Coast

Hurricane Dennis came ashore on the Florida Panhandle and Alabama coast Sunday with a 120-mph fury of blinding squalls and crashing waves that followed in the ruinous footprints of Ivan just 10 months ago.

The storm crossed land near the same state-line spot where Ivan arrived, pounding beachfronts already painfully exposed by denuded dunes, flattened neighborhoods and piles of rubble that threatened to turn into deadly missiles.

Dennis' eye came ashore at 3:25 p.m. EDT about midway between the Santa Rosa Island towns of Navarre Beach and Pensacola Beach, according to forecasters at the National Hurricane Center. Navarre Beach is about 50 miles east of where Ivan crossed.

By 5 p.m. EDT, Dennis' sustained winds had dropped to 105 mph, making it a Category 2 storm, forecasters said.

Streets in the communities of Pensacola Beach, Fort Walton Beach and Gulf Shores, Ala., were all but deserted as few residents were willing to brave an expected 18-foot storm surge and up to 15 inches of rain.

White-capped waves spewed four-story geysers over sea walls. Sideways, blinding rain blew in sheets, toppling roadside signs for hotels and gas stations. Sheriff's deputies were only responding to "life and death" 911 calls because it was too dangerous to be out on the streets.

"I've watched hurricanes down here all my life and this one has characteristics that aren't friendly," truck driver Bill Gray said early Sunday as he moved his family into a shelter at the Pensacola Civic Center. "This one is ... is squirrely a good word?"

CBS News Correspondent Cami McCormick reports a local weather forecaster cautioned folks in Mobile, Ala., on Sunday morning that Hurricane Dennis could be the most powerful storm they experience in their lifetimes.

Dennis, already responsible for at least 20 deaths in Caribbean, grew quickly in the open Gulf of Mexico into 145-mph, Category 4 storm, which would have made it the most powerful storm on record in the Panhandle and Alabama. But as it approached shore, it weakened to a 120-mph Category 3, identical to Ivan, which killed 29 people in the Panhandle alone and caused billions of dollars of damage.

Perhaps the only positive was that Dennis was a tightly wound, compact storm with hurricane-force winds extending out only 40 miles. But the worst weather was concentrated on the front, eastern edge of the storm where Ivan hit and where blue tarps and scaffolds cover scores of wrecked buildings and more than 3,000 families still rely on government-issued trailers.

High winds and roiling waves ahead of Dennis forced the shutdown of the Escambia Bay Bridge near Pensacola, which became a symbol of Ivan's destruction when a section collapsed and a trucker plunged to his death. In Gulf Shores, where beachfront buildings are still scarred from Ivan's direct hit, even the police force evacuted their storm shelter. At a news conference, the pastor husband of the area's emergency management director bowed his head and prayed for those who didn't evacuate. "We're in God's hands," he said.

As the storm got closer, most of the preparation stopped and people rushed to get inside. Federal Emergency Management Agency officials said they have medical, water, food and other supplies in place to respond to hard-hit areas quickly.

"It's time now to just hunker down and ride it out," said Randy McDaniel, Emergency Management chief in Florida's Okaloosa County. "It's just a matter of sitting and watching and waiting."

In all, 1.8 million people from Florida to Mississippi had been urged to evacuate, and storm shelters quickly filled up. More than 9,000 people were in shelters Sunday in Florida alone, and others headed to motels and relatives' homes.

Police went through waterfront neighborhoods in coastal Panhandle cities advising residents of the mandatory evacuation orders. In Fort Walton Beach, they didn't have any problem persuading Pat Gosney, who remained in his house across the street from an offshoot of Choctawhatchee Bay during Hurricane Ivan last year.

"That's why we're leaving," Gosney said. "We'll never stay again."

In the southern tip of Florida early Sunday, power was back to more than three-quarters of the 428,000 homes and businesses who had outages when Dennis' eye passed 125 miles to the west of Key West a day earlier.

"We were lucky, no doubt about it," said Jim Hendrick as he picked up branches in front of his house.

But Dennis' misery was only beginning for most, with forecasters warning hurricane-force winds may occur as far as 150 to 175 miles inland, threatening widespread power outages as it travels through heavily forested areas of Alabama, Mississippi and western Tennessee.

For some on the Gulf Coast who have been through the cycles of recovery and rebuilding already with Ivan, Dennis seemed more than just a climatological coincidence.

"The good Lord's trying to tell us something or other," said 77-year-old Lesley Hale, among 1,200 residents who rode out the storm at a shelter in Pensacola. "Something's going to give."