The front-right quadrant of Hurricane Dennis contains the storm's strongest winds. It is expected to push a storm surge of 15 to 20 feet (5 or 6 meters) of water ashore when it makes landfall, said Steve Rinard, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Lake Charles, Louisiana. If Dennis does make landfall near Mobile Bay, the coast west of there will see less dramatic effects, Rinard said.
Not So Calm Before the Storm
Gulf Coast residents have been gathering supplies and making other preparations since Thursday. The departure of Tropical Storm Cindy Thursday allowed them to get out of their homes to buy groceries, water, plywood, and gasoline.
"There are long lines at the Wal-Mart and at gas stations," said Murzin, the Florida legislator. "I drove around town and saw pickup trucks loaded with 5-gallon [19-liter] tanks of gasoline."
Although Dennis is not expected to do significant structural damage in the Florida Keys, the hurricane has already landed a punishing financial blow. The mandatory evacuation order for the lower Keys has cut off the flow of tourist dollars.
"The hotels are totally empty, and there are no tourists here," said Jeffrey Pinkus, mayor of Marathon, which is about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from Key West. "Even if the hurricane does no structural damage, economically it's a total disaster for the Keys."
Dennis also is emptying cash registers elsewhere. A.J. Holloway, mayor of Biloxi, Mississippi, said the storm is chasing visitors out of his city at the peak of the tourist season. A four-day convention that had been booked for Biloxi beginning Sunday also has been cancelled, Holloway said.
Worst Is Yet to Come?
Forecasters have predicted that the 2005 hurricane season will continue a decadelong cycle of active seasons. (See "'Active' Hurricane Season Predicted for U.S.") Four named storms have already formed. Hurricane Dennis began as a tropical depression in the eastern Caribbean Sea on July 5.
Phil Klotzbach, a meteorology research associate at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, said the formation of an intense hurricane in that part of the Caribbean in July is an unusual event.
This is the only known hurricane season to have had four storms form so early in the season, which runs from June 1 to November 30. Powerful July hurricanes formed in 1909 and 1926, but both storms lost much of their intensity before making landfall in Texas and Florida, respectively.
Meteorologist Stu Ostro of the Weather Channel said the 2005 season is shaping up to be an unusual one. The formation of Hurricane Dennis, however, isn't necessarily an indicator of what the rest of the season will be like.
"What happens early in the season doesn't necessarily mean a thing for later on," Ostro said. "In 1997, for example, things got off to an early start with a bunch of storms in June and July, including a U.S. hurricane landfall. But then there were very few storms the remainder of the season, and none hit land, either in the U.S. or Caribbean."
Ostro attributes the diminished activity in 1997 to the presence of El Niño, an occasional weather phenomenon that alters atmospheric conditions in the Pacific Ocean. The presence of El Niño typically reduces hurricane activity.
Ostro expects 2005 to be a busy season, because there's no El Niño effect.
"All signs point to a continued active season," Ostro said.
Willie Drye is the author of Storm of the Century: The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, published by National Geographic Books.
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