Posted on 07/10/2005 7:44:18 AM PDT by Pharmboy
PASCAGOULA, Miss. (AP) - Gerald Duffy, a 59 year-old retiree, sat on his front porch, under overcast skies and light rain, waiting for Dennis to come in. "I've ridden them out before," he said. "It won't be my first rodeo."
Duffy pointed to a vacant lot across the street where large limbs had been ripped from a tree last week during Tropical Storm Cindy and said he respected the power of nature but had confidence in his red brick home.
"She's withstood them for 75 years," he said of the home. "Running from them gets just as dangerous with all the traffic on the highway."
Duffy said he took some precautions like placing sandbags around his garage.
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KEY WEST, Fla. (AP) - Joe Kaemph is serving as an unfortunate reminder from the Coast Guard: "Do not ride out hurricanes on your boat."
Kaemph was trying to sail away from Key West and Hurricane Dennis in his 40-foot boat, headed for safe harbor in Miami. Then he ran into engine trouble about 20 miles into the trip.
Saturday, Kaemph was back in Key West - saying he swam almost 10 hours to get back.
A Coast Guard plane spotted him Friday on his yacht, the Julie B, but Kaemph said he didn't need help although his boat was disabled.
Saturday, Coast Guard officials called Kaemph's family to see if they had heard from him. They hadn't, but Kaemph soon called the Coast Guard to report a long swim to safety.
He told the Coast Guard he thought his boat sank after he abandoned it.
"This survival story is one-in-a-million," said Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Chris O'Neil.
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LOXLEY, Ala. (AP) - Tom Fincher is taking his cues from the gaggle of geese and one duck in the yard outside his barbershop. Like them, he isn't about to migrate north.
"During Ivan, they just settled down under an azalea bush and let it blow. When it's over, they come back out and they are happy and don't have a problem," Fincher said.
Fincher said people in Loxley, a small town 30 miles from the Gulf, tend to take hurricanes in stride. He and his wife, Shirley, plan to ride out the storm in their house across the street from Fincher's Barber Shop.
"I think you get used to it. You got to get used to it and you build accordingly," he said Saturday.
Pam Knight and her husband Jay planned to ride out the storm with their sons inside their home - just like they did during Ivan.
"We stayed right through Ivan. Right in the middle of it when it sounded like the roof was coming off, I kind of had second thoughts about it," she said.
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PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. (AP) - With Hurricane Dennis on its way, surfers up and down the Florida coast took to their boards to catch some waves.
"Surf's up and it's getting better by the minute," J.C. Smith said Saturday.
He spent nearly as much time on his cell phone as on his surfboard, calling friends, family members and fellow surfers about conditions.
This was their hurricane party.
"The bigger the better, and it doesn't get any better around here than just before a hurricane," said Smith, a 27-year-old bartender who surfed Hurricanes Frances and Ivan last year.
The area surrounding the pier at Panama City Beach was filled with thrillseekers Saturday, but more often than not, the unusually large waves - about 5 to 7 feet - had arms flailing, feet flying and boards flipping.
Bigger surf usually causes stronger undertow - rip currents that can quickly pull swimmers into deep water faster than they can swim back to shore. When heavy rain arrived, surfers who had been jockeying for swells were racing for shore.
"People think we're crazy, but as you can see, no one wants to surf in a hurricane," said Fritz Brugge, 45. "Once it's gets really ugly, we're done."
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GULF BREEZE, Fla. (AP) - From Marc Cabassa's point of view, it could be worse.
"We've been through a lot of storms and there'll be more, but you've got problems just about anywhere you want to live: flooding, hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, earthquakes. At least we have some warnings on this," he said.
Cabassa noted that Pensacola was struck by a series of hurricanes when Don Tristan de Luna established the first Spanish colony here in 1559.
"In the early 1900s when Pensacola was going to take off as a lumber town we had a decade of getting hammered," he said. "Now you could go from (1995 Hurricanes) Erin and Opal to this period, there's another decade."
His wife, Rebecca, isn't quite so optimistic about the area where her husband grew up.
"I personally knew when we got married that we would be in this neighborhood," she said, "but these storms are telling me it might be a sign that we need to move on."
I rode out a hurricane and the lawless ones came in soon as the wind died down and took off as soon as we Racked the action on a shotgun. It is a good language to know. Know what I mean?
There are many webcams along the Gulf at hotels and restaurants. We should be able to tune in until they lose power.
And I know what you mean...good luck.
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