Hurricane Ivan was the deadliest hurricane to hit the US since Floyd in 1999, but it could have been worse. It spared New Orleans and left millions feeling lucky in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
But storm-battered Florida was less fortunate. Ivan flattened homes, swamped streets and spun off at least a dozen tornadoes in the Panhandle. In all, the hurricane killed 70 people in the Caribbean and at least 23 along the Gulf Coast, most of them in Florida.
More bad news could await: Tropical Storm Jeanne looms in the Atlantic on a track toward the southeastern US -- and, possibly, Florida.
"People are just sick of it," groaned Dennis Mace, who as a handyman is one of the few Floridians benefiting after the third hurricane in five weeks assaulted the Sunshine State. Hunting for work in the wake of Ivan, Mace spotted a sign that summed up the feelings of many:
It read: "1 Charley, 2 Frances, 3 Ivan, 4 Sale."
Ivan quickly weakened to a tropical depression after coming ashore Thursday, but it continued to spin off tornadoes and cause flooding across the South, already soggy after Hurricanes Charley and Frances.
Ivan came ashore with 210kph winds near Gulf Shores Beach, Alabama, around 3am Thursday.
In Escambia County, Florida, home to Pensacola and some 300,000 residents, at least seven people died in the storm, including one who suffered a heart attack at a shelter. Search and rescue operations were to continue yesterday in hard-hit coastal communities.
"Some of the houses, everything inside was gone out of one side -- like a heavy wave of water hit it and spit the stuff inside of the house out," Sheriff Ron McNesby said.
Off Gulf Shores Highway, in a neighborhood nestled along Pensacola's Grand Lagoon, at least a half dozen homes and businesses were demolished -- some swept clear off their foundations.
The hiss and stench of leaking gas filled the air as stricken residents waded through calf-high water collecting what belongings they could.
Doug Pacitti, a deck hand on a charter fishing boat, lived with his friend and son across the street from the bay. On Thursday, he stepped over crumbled bricks, broken dishes and plywood to survey what was left of the house he rented.
The walls that once encased his bedroom and bathroom collapsed, leaving his bathtub exposed. Where the kitchen should have been, silverware and skillets sat under an open sky. The refrigerator was propelled into the back yard, where it came to rest under a fallen pine tree.
A storm surge of 3m to 4.8m spawned monster waves. A portion of a bridge on Interstate 10, the major east-west highway through the Panhandle, was washed away.
Hundreds of thousands of people were without power, including 90 percent of Gulf Power Co's customers in Florida.
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