I was in California and had flown out of Pensacola airport just prior to Ivan making landfall. I too had to rent a car in Atlanta and drive back. I was unable to get my car from the Pensacola airport until two weeks later. They did not charge me for parking thank god.
Hurricane Ivan five years ago today
- Thread starter Kurt
- Start date
-
Trouble logging in? Send us a message with your username and/or email address for help.
Ivan...piled ShallowsSquirt, a Labrador Retriever and two cats (one loudly meowing Siamese) into my Camry, intending to go to Abbeville, Alabama. Instead, we wound up at Fuzz's grandmother's house. Fuzz's grandmother's very old house. 
Cousin had a battery-powered TV, which is the only reason I kept my sanity. But that old tin roof shook like hail in the middle of the night. Scared to death. Came home via 79 late the next day to no electricity, no phone, no nothing. Had football game tickets so went to Tallahassee. Should have emptied the freezer before going to Tallahassee. 
The good news is that the drain I insisted on having installed in the utility room floor paid off.
Dennis...the Howard Johnson on N. Monroe in Tallahassee. Rained. No damage at home. Beach looked like hail.
Cousin had a battery-powered TV, which is the only reason I kept my sanity. But that old tin roof shook like hail in the middle of the night. Scared to death. Came home via 79 late the next day to no electricity, no phone, no nothing. Had football game tickets so went to Tallahassee. Should have emptied the freezer before going to Tallahassee. The good news is that the drain I insisted on having installed in the utility room floor paid off. Dennis...the Howard Johnson on N. Monroe in Tallahassee. Rained. No damage at home. Beach looked like hail.
Wow. Amazing pics, Kurt.
Hurricane Ivan Sept. 16, 2004 about 9 a.m. -- the day after. Notice how Mother Nature has widened the outfall and is bringing in a ton of sand, someones landscaping and salt water into the lake. Incredible. There is no stopping this kind of action. The outfall will be where the outfall wants to be no matter what other actions are taken in between by us lowly humans. This is at Eastern Lake, in the middle of SoWal, about nine hours after landfall near Pensacola.
Sunset Sept. 14, the night before Ivan on Eastern Lake. We stayed, so have lots of pictures before, during and after. Movies, too.
Last edited:
Being my "first Hurricane," I escaped and went to vacation in Asheville for a few days. It was the largest flood they had in over 100 years. Half of the roads heading out of the city were closed due to bridges being flooded, even one bridge, normally 40ft above the water, almost had water coming over the top. Flooding got worse, so I drove back to SoWal since they had reopened the 331 bridge, but had no power for another couple days, so drove to Panama City and helped some people cut and remove trees which had fallen in their yard, before heading back to SoWal, where I checked on people's houses.
Here are some pics from that time in Asheville:
the main road into Asheville from the south
This is the guard house at the main entrance to Biltmore Estates.
US Hwy 70 near Warren Wilson College (photo courtesy Dr. Donald Collins)
Apparently, Home Depot did more research, because they built on high and dry land and were very busy after this flood. Lowe's was closed for quiet some time.
Here are some pics from that time in Asheville:
the main road into Asheville from the south
This is the guard house at the main entrance to Biltmore Estates.
US Hwy 70 near Warren Wilson College (photo courtesy Dr. Donald Collins)
Apparently, Home Depot did more research, because they built on high and dry land and were very busy after this flood. Lowe's was closed for quiet some time.
You know you they'll talk about 98-99% of an area being without power because of a storm? We were the lucky 2% during Ivan- lots of hard flickers, but it never went down for good.
It was utterly eerie the night Ivan came ashore. We had channel 3 on the whole time because we wanted to know if a tornado warning went up, and there was one point where they were talking about how that between their broadcast tower going down, a bunch of radio towers going out of commission, and the massive power outages, they were going on the assumption that they didn't know if anyone could still hear them outside a small number of people watching on cable in Crestview because they'd gotten a phone call from there, but they were going to keep broadcasting the best they could anyways. Pitch black out, the wind was howling, and with them talking to the darkness, it was probably the most isolated I'd ever felt in my life.
Afterwards- my burblet spent 50 some years as a turpentine plantation, and they planted a lot of shortleaf pines because they grew fast. But those trees were really NOT wind-tolerant. For about two weeks after the storm, you'd hear chainsaws from 7:00am to dusk, the debris piles were five feet high on either side of the road in spots as people dealt with the fragile pine trees, and there were the constant debris trucks going through the neighborhood trying to get the vegetation levels down to something manageable.
Getting caught up in the excitement of Destin Publix reopening and then having to race back across the Mid Bay Bridge to get home before curfew.
It was utterly eerie the night Ivan came ashore. We had channel 3 on the whole time because we wanted to know if a tornado warning went up, and there was one point where they were talking about how that between their broadcast tower going down, a bunch of radio towers going out of commission, and the massive power outages, they were going on the assumption that they didn't know if anyone could still hear them outside a small number of people watching on cable in Crestview because they'd gotten a phone call from there, but they were going to keep broadcasting the best they could anyways. Pitch black out, the wind was howling, and with them talking to the darkness, it was probably the most isolated I'd ever felt in my life.
Afterwards- my burblet spent 50 some years as a turpentine plantation, and they planted a lot of shortleaf pines because they grew fast. But those trees were really NOT wind-tolerant. For about two weeks after the storm, you'd hear chainsaws from 7:00am to dusk, the debris piles were five feet high on either side of the road in spots as people dealt with the fragile pine trees, and there were the constant debris trucks going through the neighborhood trying to get the vegetation levels down to something manageable.
Getting caught up in the excitement of Destin Publix reopening and then having to race back across the Mid Bay Bridge to get home before curfew.
The one bright thing about the shortleaf pines is that they tend to come down slowly- bend, bend, bend, until they're at a very narrow angle to the ground before they actually come down.
We had one of them fall on our garage, and the only damage was a very slight dent in the metal ridge vent at the peak of the roofline.
We had one of them fall on our garage, and the only damage was a very slight dent in the metal ridge vent at the peak of the roofline.
kathydwells
Darlene is my middle name, not my nickname
Wow...amazing photos all of you! Hurricane Ivan is how/why I found SoWal.com. I was trying to find out about Seagrove Villa's and Motel, and found this site. The rest as they say is history. 