Dennis Batters Florida Panhandle

Still, the true scope of the massive storm was only beginning to come into focus Sunday evening, while hundreds of relief crews arrived to assess damage before darkness made their work impossibly treacherous. The day after a hurricane, the storm veterans in this area know, often reveals much more damage than anticipated when the winds were still whipping.

Dennis spread hurricane-force winds over 40 miles of coastline dotted with tiny beach communities, simultaneously beloved as summer havens, and affectionately dubbed the "Redneck Riviera" by some of its frequent visitors. But the width of the storm's destructive power was much greater, with damaging winds of tropical-storm force, and accompanying storm surges extending more than 100 miles from its core.

Gen. Douglas Burnett of the Florida National Guard said the return of units from Iraq gave him far greater troop numbers than the Guard had during last year's four-hurricane season; relief efforts in Florida were then hampered because of the mass call-up of National Guard units for overseas duties. Four battalions were on standby or on their way to the Panhandle late Sunday, along with a contingent of heavy Chinook helicopters.

The relief effort is sure to be complicated by the delicate geography of the area; much of the most vulnerable communities is connected to the mainland only by small bridges susceptible to the punishing 15-foot storm surge kicked up by Dennis. Dive teams were dispatched to check whether roughed-up bridges would hold.

The trajectory of the storm kept it away from the largest population centers. Early Sunday, Dennis appeared headed directly for Mobile Bay, a potentially dangerous landfall point that could have submerged much of Mobile's historic downtown. Alabama Gov. Bob Riley ordered a mass evacuation of Mobile, the most extensive in state history, and residents who in past years had seemed blasé about hurricane threats responded en masse.

More than 1.5 million people live in areas throughout the region affected by evacuation orders, and traffic counts led officials to believe that huge numbers heeded the warning and left. By Sunday afternoon, for instance, 98 percent of the hotel rooms in Alabama were filled as the outer edges of Dennis slapped Mobile with heavy wind and rain. At the eastern entrance to town, several dozen people sought the most ingenious of shelters: the living quarters inside the heavy metal hull of the USS Alabama, a retired World War II battleship that has become one of the state's most popular tourist attractions.

Others took more traditional coping measures, opting for the comforts of a storm-season standby: the hurricane party. At the VFW Hall on Hollinger's Island near Mobile, Commander Harry Smith was not planning to open, but his regulars insisted.

As rain pelted the little hall, C.D. Hauser, a retired Navy man, downed a Bloody Mary and declared, "I'm going back to Arkansas" as the jukebox blared lyrics that gave the place the feel of a parallel reality: "I can see clearly now, the rain is gone."

To be sure, there was much to make residents wonder if what was happening to them was real. The area was drenched just six days earlier by a strong tropical storm, Cindy, after two previous tropical storms had also whisked through the area.

Escambia County Administrator George Touart said all of the season's named storms had slapped his county. "We're beginning to wonder what we've done wrong," he said.

Cassandra Trial, 46, does not plan to stick around to find out. She moved to Pensacola from Los Angeles in March so that she could be closer to her daughter. Since then, it seems she has done little more than watch rain and wind.

"This is too much for me," said Trial, who staked a spot among 300 other people in an elementary school-turned-shelter on Sunday. "I'm going back to California and deal with the earthquakes. Roofs blowing off and all this -- no, I can't have it."

All around are signs of last year's unprecedented clumps of hurricanes: hundreds of broken roofs covered by blue tarps and billboards with great chunks bitten out of their middles by the wind.

"Before we could get our heads all the way back up above the water, we're being pushed down again," said Susan Walden, a writer in Pensacola.

But the hardy types are evident here, too, the ones who refused to leave and within minutes of facing down Dennis were grasping from some semblance of normal. Thi Nhuang Bina was open for business less than three hours after Dennis passed, selling sodas and bottled water from her convenience store on W Street in Pensacola.

Outside, Laderick Ward, 26, lined up with a dozen others, hoping there would still be a cold beer in the refrigerator when he got inside to calm his nerves.

"It was very strong," Ward said of Dennis, "but Ivan took away everything that was weak. . . . Pretty soon, there won't be anything left to tear up."

Roig-Franzia reported from Mobile. Staff writer Hamil R. Harris in Cape Canaveral contributed to this report.