Hurricane Dennis Blog

Ok, its not a hurricane chase because you don't chase them, you intercept them. In Mobile AL with Blake Michaleski and were going to target anywhere from Here to There for the eye wall land fall. For those thinking about coming, Fuel from New Orleans to the east is pretty much gone. We topped off tonight but the first place I topped off at ran out of gas after I paid for gas. When I got into Mobile to top off again, one of the only gas stations I found open that had gas in the area I'm staying in only had the top dollar gas. Most stores are shutting down tomorrow since there is still a big area of where the worst of the storm could hit. The local governments are putting in the mandatory evacuation orders so pretty much only the emergency services, national guard and the media will be on scene. It's a very good thing that I brought along everything I could need for this chase except water, but I'll fill up on that later today after I get some sleep.

Hurricane Dennis is still on track for slamming into the AL & FL boarder area of the Gulf Coast. Waiting on the next update from the National Hurricane Center and heading to Pensacola.

The first outer band of Hurricane Dennis hit the Pensacola Florida Area this afternoon as people were evacuating and getting last minute fuel supplies at the couple stations that still had fuel.

The National Hurricane Center shows that Hurricane Dennis is still on track for hitting us. We will have to reposition some during the storm due to the fact that the eye of the storm is so small. The National Hurricane Center just upgraded Hurricane Dennis to a Cat 3 Hurricane.

We were out shooting video this afternoon of the outer bands of the hurricane. Click on the image below to watch the raw Hurricane Dennis video of the first bands and evacuation and fuel shortage.

07/10/2005 1:50 A.M Hurricane Dennis Video Blog Update.

Were still in Pensacola Florida but Dennis is going to slam into Mobile AL from all data that Blake and I have been looking at. NHC or National Hurricane Center www.nhc.noaa.gov is also showing that storm is about to rape the city of Mobile, so were going to head west in a few hours after a quick nap.

A Sun-Sentinel Photographer caught me out on a pier shooting video of huge waves as the huge waves were smashing into the pier. This photo is copyrighted www.krtdirect.com - Used With Permission.

So what was I shooting video of? We were the crew to go out and get the insane footage for The Weather Channel.

Here we are in Gulf Breeze Florida as the storm starts to kick up. We were there because we wanted to be able to be mobile if the eye wall shifted east so we could be in the right front quadrant of Hurricane Dennis to shoot video of the most intense winds.

After we shot the Hurricane Dennis video in Gulf Breeze, we got it to The Weather Channel fast because the storm was about to slam into us.

Category Three Hurricane Dennis Video From Navarre Beach Florida

Dennis shifted east right before the landfall and the most intense winds hit us in Navarre and Navarre Beach Florida. This Hurricane Dennis video is 25 Meg

The aftermath of Hurricane Dennis on video. Dennis slammed into the Navarre Florida area and did a lot of damage but not as much as it could have. This video is actually a two part video and includes footage of the aftermath of Hurricane Dennis on Pensacola Beach when we were shown around the area by the sheriffs department.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I'm back home in Minnesota.

Yes, today is 7/11/2005 and I am back home in Minnesota less then 24 hour's after intercepting a major hurricane. How did I do it? Oh I'm Good!!! After Blake and I shot the last of the footage in Navarre and then fed the footage off to the networks, all of the networks, the networks were now sending in their own crews to cover the aftermath. So we were not needed anymore.

We headed back to our hotel on the northwest side of Pensacola to find it was without power and I told Blake to call home and see how Mobile Alabama was after Dennis hit the coast. We found out that nothing happened in Mobile so we packed up our stuff and checked out of the hotel and headed west.

We made it back to Blake's place about 90 minutes later and we started to clean out the truck and get ready to call it a night. Well, I had an idea and I called the airline to see if they could put me on the first flight out since I was stuck in the hurricane zone. Sure enough, they said they could put me on the first flight out of New Orleans and have be back home by Noon.

So now I sit in the comforts of home in Minnesota and I'm watching the footage shot hours before in the middle of a disaster, on The Weather Channel.

Damn my life is crazy but I'm never bored.