Update on Ivan from Ft. Walton area...

coppercoins

My best friend and partner on coppercoins, Bob, lives in the Niceville, Blue Water Bay area just across the bay from Ft. Walton. He called this morning on the cell right after the heaviest part of the storm left their area. He says all the people directly around him are safe, but they have a long road of cleanup ahead of them. There is widespread catastrophic damage in Destin, San Destin, Destin Commons, and Fort Walton Beach, as well as heavy damage in his area and points North.

I'm giving this update in the event someone here knows someone in that area and is wondering how things went....it's not very good, but not as bad as it could have been, spoken from someone who lived through it in his house last night, just 7 miles from the coast.

MICHAELDIXON

Thanks! I just called the Police Dept in Eufaula, Alabama and they said the storm was just getting there. But...they already had trees down, power outages, etc.

UncleWiggly

Any and all updates would be greatly appreciated.


Jerry

jhar

Greetings from Dothan in SE Alabama. Our Power went out here approx 9:00pm last night and was finally restored at approx 10:00am this morning. I pretty much stayed up all night to monitor the radio for the many Tornado Warnings that were in our area. Most were to the south and east of our house, and I've heard that several touched down. On tornado took out a good sized office building in the Marianna Industrial Park. Marianna is approx 40 minutes south of Dothan. My wife's Mother and Father live about 5 minutes from where the twister hit the industrial park. They told us this morning that they heard the tornado roar past them while they hunkered down in a hallway. Thankfully we don't have any damage to report other than some scattered leaves and small branches from trees. We had sustained wind of approx 50 to 60 MPH last night. It rained, then it rained some more, then just for kicks it rained again. Looks like a lot of the bad stuff is now well north of us and we are just left with some really gusty winds (up to 50mph). We still have a flood watch and a tornado watch.


We faired a whole lot better than folks to the west of us in the Pensacola, FL and Mobile, Gulf Shores, AL area. The Eye came on land at about 1:30 in the morning bringing a huge storm surge with it. I've heard of pretty bad flooding and a lot of destroyed buildings. The most dramatic news is that the Pensacola Bridge that connects Santa Rosa and Escambia counties of FL has be heavily damaged. From what I understand a qtr mile portion of the bridge has been washed away. This will mean major problems for the folks who fled Ivan as the main way home is out of commission for a long time.

More later guys

Gonfunko

Sounds pretty bad...we got hit with Jeane yesterday. Lots of rain and wind. The roof on one of the buildings near us lost some of the aluminum tiles, and they're still in the pool. Power's been out since about the middle of the storm, and last I heard, 2 million people on Puerto Rico were without water and thousands without electricity. I've had yesterday and today off school, and it's about a 50% chance of school starting again tomorrow. Take care, and good luck with the rest of Ivan.

Coinhusker1

Do they still have the "Circle City Coin Club" in Dothan? I used go to their meetings when I was a teenager (long long time ago, in 1980-81).

jhar

I have heard of that club, but I have no idea if it meets or not.

Dog97

I live 6 miles from the beach & took a direct hit from jivin ivan.
We got the evacuation order Monday afternoon. Governor says everybody south of I-10 has to leave. Of course I stay anyway, my aunt down the road stays, 5 of my cousins up the road stay. 4 of my cousins live in house trailers so they piled up with my other cousin who lives in a house. My neighbor who lives in 2 house trailers with a hallway between them hauls butt. Another cousin with a house has about 6 of her neighbors pile up with her. Everybody else around here left but I don't know where they went because there were no shelters open around here.
8:15 pm power went out.
9:15 pm tree in back yard split down the middle one ½ barely missed my house. The other ½ smashed my shed. It went CRUNNNNNNNNNCH. I thought my neighbors house trailer was rolling across my roof because it shook everything.
12:30 am tree in front yard went down barely missed my house.
I spent most of the night on my front porch watching it & smoking cigarettes. Every time a tornado would fly over I'd get scared & run inside.
I heard stuff going POP, SNAP, CRUNCH, BUMP, THUD, BANG, BAM all night but couldn't see much.
2:30 am The eye passed over. I jumped in my truck & turned on the radio to hear the news. They said the Medical Arts
Building next to Sacred Heart Hospital was destroyed. They said the eye was passing over & NOT to go outside. Duh!
3:00 am The eye left & it started all over again so I got back on the porch. After the eye goes over the winds come from the opposite direction & that made the wind & rain blow on my porch so I went inside & went to bed.

My mother is in Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola, her room & 3 others was damaged and they had to spend the night in the hallway. They are still without power. The hospital has generators but they are for life support & emergency power and will not handle the cooling system. She said she's about to die from the heat and it aint no fun laying in a hospital bed sweating to death. Baptist Hospital was damaged and only has 30 undamaged rooms left. That's like a 10 story hospital.

I was only without power for 23 hours even though I was in the eye but my circuit was right off the main line & only had 3 or 4 trees on it and the main line wasn't damaged. The folks east of me like in Pensacola & sw Fla were heavily damaged because if your on the east side of a hurricane the circulation of the thing is pushing most of the storm on that side. If you're on the west side you won't get much. That's why I wasn't much worried about leaving. That's why when Charley & Francis tore up Fla just next door and flooded the L out of K6AZ and all them, we didn't get a drop of rain from either of them.

MS68

Dog- You are one lucky guy. I am happy for you that all in your family made it through that terible storm unscathed. Do you play poker? If so, I want to talk to you about paying your entry fee in the world series of poker next year here in Vegas.

Tootawl

Great report Dog. Thank God that you and your family is ok.

MacCrimmon

Glad you're OK. Hope your mom comes through OK too.

P.S. Sounds like you built a good house.....if me and the missus ever spring for a lot on the Forgotten Coast, we need to talk!

jhar

Thank the Lord you and your family are all right. You have cahones than I do to set on your porch during Cat 3 borderline Cat 4 Hurricane. Take care and let us know how bad your cleanup will be.