Florida Breathes Sigh Of Relief

While parts of the mid-Mississippi, Tennessee and lower Ohio valleys all the way into the Carolinas were getting rain from the storm Monday, Gulf Coast residents, with a sigh of relief, began cleaning up from Hurricane Dennis.

Hurricane Dennis hit the

There was scattered flooding in Florida and Georgia, and more than 550,000 customers in four states were without power, with some likely to be out for three weeks or more. However, officials reported little major structural damage.

"I think we dodged a pretty large bullet," said Nick Zangari, a restaurant and bar owner in Pensacola. "I think people took more precautions the second time around."

It was already business as usual Monday morning for casinos along Mississippi's Gulf Coast.

By 5 a.m. Monday, Dennis had weakened to a tropical depression centered over northeast Mississippi with 35 mph wind. As it moved north-northwest at 14 mph and became disorganized during the morning, rain fell across parts of the mid-Mississippi, Tennessee and lower Ohio valleys and into the Carolinas.

One band of rain stalled over Georgia and Peachtree City, a suburb of Atlanta, got more than 6 inches in 18 hours, the National Weather Service said. "We could still see another few inches; it's just not moving," weather service meteorologist Eric Avila said Monday.

Dennis caused an estimated $1 billion to $2.5 billion in insured damage in the United States, according to a projection by AIR Worldwide Corp. of Boston, an insurance risk modeling company. Munich Re, the world's biggest reinsurance company, estimated the insured loss at $3 billion to $5 billion.

Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said

"We want to make certain that those who perhaps didn't evacuate, that are still in damaged neighborhoods, that they have the things they need to survive, that they have meals ready to eat, that they have water, that they have a place to sleep," Brown said Monday on CBS News' The Early Show.

"Our objective is to make certain we save people's lives, let them sustain their life, let them get their feet back on the ground, so they can start rebuilding their lives," Brown said.

Beverly Hayes, who runs the Econo-Flash truck stop in Lithia Springs, Ga., says the FEMA inspectors ought to take a look at her block.

"The street right in front of us is flooded, and it's just disrupted business a lot," Hayes told CBS Radio News.

One death was reported, a man electrocuted in Fort Lauderdale when he stepped on a fallen power line, police spokesman Bill Schultz said. Dennis was responsible for at least 20 deaths in the Caribbean, but there's still danger in the U.S.

"Most deaths happen after the storm," said Florida Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings.
A fast-moving Category 3 hurricane when it came ashore with 120 mph winds, Dennis was smaller than Ivan and weaker than when it churned through the Gulf of Mexico as a potentially catastrophic Category 4 storm.

Everyone in the Navarre, Fla., area is grateful it wasn't worse than it was, reports CBS News Correspondent Drew Levinson.

"We are miles ahead of where we were last time," said Escambia County Sheriff Ron McNesby.

"A lot of people like me included just finished getting their houses back together again and, jeez, we get hit with another hurricane," said Ceil Holley, who is grateful "the hurricane went through so quickly it didn't have time to destroy a lot of the stuff that Ivan had to destroy."

Striking less than 50 miles east of where Ivan came ashore, Dennis generated white-capped waves spewing four-story geysers over sea walls. Boats broke loose and bobbed like toys in the roiling ocean. Roofs went flying, power lines fell and rain blew sideways in sheets.

The wind forced the shutdown of the Escambia Bay Bridge, a symbol of Ivan's destruction when a section collapsed and a trucker plunged to his death. Waves offshore exceeded 30 feet, and in downtown Pensacola the gulf spilled over sidewalks eight blocks inland. At Navarre Beach, the storm cut a fishing pier in two.

Flooding on U.S. 98, the major coastal highway in the Panhandle, cut off main routes into beach communities. The Panama City Marine Institute also was under water.

Southern Georgia also had flooding, and people had to be rescued from about 400 homes in two counties, said Kandice Weech of the state Emergency Management Agency. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said a preliminary survey found 45 homes with varying degrees of damage in coastal Jackson County.

Power outages affected more than 236,700 homes and businesses in the Panhandle, some 280,000 in Alabama, 55,000 in Georgia and at least 7,000 customers in Mississippi. Gulf Power Co., the main utility for the western Panhandle, said customers should be prepared to do without electricity for three weeks or more.

Little damage was evident between Navarre Beach and Pensacola Beach, where the hurricane made landfall.

"It went into a relatively unpopulated area," Escambia County Commissioner Mike Whitehead said. "If that thing had shifted 20 miles to the west, we'd have been in trouble, but we got real lucky."

Dennis was the fifth hurricane to strike Florida in less than 11 months. President Bush issued a major disaster declaration for the state. He also declared 38 counties in Mississippi and 45 counties in Alabama federal disaster areas, making them eligible for assistance from FEMA.

Meanwhile, a fifth tropical depression was far out in the Atlantic on Monday. Forecasters said it was could become a tropical storm in the next day or two; it would be named Emily.

At 11 a.m., the depression had wind of 35 mph and was about 1,120 miles east of the Windward Islands, and heading in the general direction of the Caribbean islands and Florida.