The Command Post
Global Recon
July 09, 2005
Hurricane Dennis III : Storm Regains Major Hurricane Status[updated 7:20pmEST]

Dennis has weakened a bit as it heads to the states.

Here is what the warning/watch situation looks like now (last updated 5am).

The death toll in Cuba is at 20. The storm also killed 15 people in Haiti before slamming into Cuba.

In southern Haiti, 15 people died when a swollen river tore away a bridge. The total number of deaths in Haiti reached 22, according to various officials.

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Cuban authorities had evacuated more than 600,000 people in different parts of the country as Dennis approached the southern city of Cienfuegos. But the measures, which usually allow the Communist island to escape hurricane strikes with minimal casualties, failed to prevent 10 deaths on Thursday night.

Cuban President Fidel Castro said most of the victims died in collapsed houses in two coastal towns in Granma province. An 18-day-old baby was among those who died, he said on state television, calling the hurricane a "diabolical force."

Officials said 15,400 of the adjacent towns' 20,000 homes were destroyed or damaged. Television images showed rows of clapboard houses flattened by the storm.

Dennis is now Category 2, with 110 mph winds, but experts expect it to pick up strength as it heads over the waters towards the US coast.

You can see here that the hurricane doesn't look as tight and concentrated as it did yesterday.

..to be updated...

11:45:

Hurricane Dennis Swipes Florida Keys
Coastal residents packed up and evacuated or hunkered down Saturday as Hurricane Dennis lashed the Florida Keys with wind and sheets of rain and churned along a path toward areas still rebuilding from last year's storms.

More than 1 million people from the Florida Panhandle to Louisiana were under evacuation orders. Landfall was expected Sunday afternoon anywhere from the Florida Panhandle to southeast Louisiana.

``This is a very dangerous storm and we hope that you will evacuate,'' Gov. Jeb Bush said to residents in the Panhandle.

Updated warnings and watches

Position estimate

Some blogs talking about Dennis:

Nicholas Roussos
Hurricane Land
Mike Bonnett

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3:36PM

Dennis cuts power to all of Key West

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Coastal residents packed up and evacuated or hunkered down Saturday as Hurricane Dennis lashed the Florida Keys with wind and sheets of rain and charged toward areas still rebuilding from last year's storms.

More than 1 million people from the Florida Panhandle to Louisiana were under evacuation orders. Landfall was expected Sunday afternoon anywhere from the Florida Panhandle to southeast Louisiana.

"This is a very dangerous storm and we hope that you will evacuate," Gov. Jeb Bush said to residents in the Panhandle.

The latest warning from the Hurricane Center says Dennis is reorganizing.
Check out the satellite image here - looks much more like a hurricane than it did this morning.

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7:20

Million told to flee as Dennis closes in
The storm was on a north-west track that could take it to landfall today local time between Florida's north-western panhandle and Mississippi - an area still recovering from a battering by Hurricane Ivan in September.

Dennis could be Cat. 4 at landfall

Hurricane Dennis is rapidly intensifying and could be a Category 4 storm at landfall near the Florida/Alabama state line, the National Hurricane Center reported in its 4 p.m. briefing. Reports from aircraft reconnaissance and signs of the storm resuming its track toward Northwest Florida have National Hurricane Center and National Weather Service forecasters concerned that this storm will be more intense and have higher storm surge than Hurricane Ivan, which made landfall in Gulf Shores, Ala., on Sept. 16 as a Category 3.

Thousands lose power, tornadoes touch down in South Florida

Update from Hurricane Center:
REPORTS FROM AN AIR FORCE RESERVE HURRICANE HUNTER AIRCRAFT INDICATE
THAT THE CENTRAL PRESSURE OF DENNIS HAS FALLEN RAPIDLY TO 947 MB.
DENNIS HAS REGAINED DANGEROUS MAJOR HURRICANE STATUS...CATEGORY 3
ON THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON HURRICANE SCALE...WITH MAXIMUM SUSTAINED
WINDS OF 115 MPH. WINDS ARE EXPECTED TO INCREASE EVEN MORE THIS
EVENING.

Check this out:

Looks a lot different than this morning.

Posted by Michele at July 9, 2005 06:02 AM | TrackBack
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