Pensacola got it pretty bad last night!!

[SloNLo_350]

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/040916/040915_pensacola_vlrg_8a.standard.jpg

That is on the way to Brian's house via I-10. He is a few miles west of there. I've been trying to get him on the nextel all day, but it keeps saying "user not availible." That bridge is usually about 20 feet above the water (at least... i dont remember exactly), so I'm worried that Brian's house might have gotten flooded as well.

Also 9 blocks of downtown Pensacola are under water. Ft. Walton fared alright I heard. A telephone pole went down in my front yard, my parents said. Some roof damage on some building just down the road from me (near the hotel where the weather channel people stayed), but otherwise its holding up good.

I'd really like to hear something from Brian though, according to RacingPensacola.com it got REALLY nasty over there last night. I talked to him last yesterday afternoon and he said they already had 70-80mph winds.

EDIT: I attached a picture of Downtown P'cola.

[BreBar21]

[IMG]I've been trying to get him on the nextel all day, but it keeps saying "user not availible."


In the event of a natural disaster or an occurrence that requires emergency assistance, Nextel gives priority service on their heavily flooded (no pun intended) network to the emergency workers. That probably has something to do with why you can't get him on two-way.

[SloNLo_350]

I figured it was just busy because Brandon couldnt even get me on mine here in tallahassee today. He tried calling Brian too, (thorugh the phone not the 2 way) and couldnt get through. Also i wanted to add this.
http://www.weather.com/newscenter/topstories/ivanslideshow.html?from=home

[RyanRC187]

My parents live in Milton and there were several big pine trees uprooted. The roof over our porch is completely gone, and the top of the chimney was damaged, but other than that the whole house was pretty much fine. Who knows how long it'll be before they get power.

Yeah, I saw the picture of the I10 bridge, its usually 20 or 30 ft above the water, it looks like its 3 or 4 in that picture. The 9 mile bridge is also taken out, so I don't know how anyone is supposed to get to Pensacola without going WAY out of the way.

[sstony]

yeah i'm pretty worried about brian also. he said they lived really close to the water and if the waters rose high enough to take out a bridge, then it doesn't look good for his house. hopefully we hear from him soon. what irritates me is that they keep focusing on the part of alabama where the eye hit, and that place didn't even get it that bad. looks like the panhandle got it way worse.

:mad1:

[SloNLo_350]

Yeah, I've been to Brian's house and he is right on that river on the AL - FL line. Like he said, a couple of years ago they got a 6-8 ft storm surge and it was right up to his back door, and they expected 12-16 for this one. And by the looks of Escambia Bay, they got more than that. From what I heard, 3 mile bridge was still standing, but the low parts were under water. I got word from alot of people over there though and they all did pretty well, and in Ft. Walton everything was alright.

[Spinner]

We had a bigass oak tree fall on our house

[Riceman]

Strange seeing somewhere I used to be every weekend devestated like that. I used to live in Gulf Shores which got hit heavy, and went to Pensacola just about every weekend. Both I-10 and Hwy 98 have been damaged and are impassable.

Not looking forward to seeing the damage first hand this coming Sunday/Monday :(

[cary00silve]

My mom lives in gulf breeze about 2 miles from the gulf, and just about all of the trees in her yard got torn down. They're saying P'cola beach is damn near gone

[01GT]

tell you guys what, its really bad. i live in gulf breeze. 6 of my freinds lost their houses, i found a VW torag(not sure of spell..) on a golf course no where near a house. this is the first time i have been online. i havent seen any photos of anything yet. Me and my family went back to our home yesterday, and just turned around. we gonna stay in gulfport ms for a few days to cool down. i walked down our street and found teddy bears, cloths, cars jet skis, hot tubs, anything you want faraway from houses. every one who was near my area i hope you guys did ok, and every is alright. This changed alotta peoples minds about hurricanes though......see yall later, not sure when ill be online again...
jason

[96s10]

well, im back in tally. there are no words to describe what happened in pensacola. the pictures don't do it justice. you just have to be there. my house fared ok. structually its ok, content wise not really. we were lucky in that we only had 8 inches of water in our house. the wave damage was minor as well. still, have the sheetrock and most of the insulation has to be taken out. we inherited a shed from our neighbor's house. just floated right over the fence and set down in our yard. also got a picnic table and a part of a dock. my house is 7.2 ft above the water level, so we had about an 8 ft storm surge at my house. this is about 5-7 miles north of the intercoastal waterway. there were 7 shrimp boats that came and tied up behind my house to get away from the storm. only 1 made it. the rest are in the trees or sideways on the ground. the only one that made it was because the guy rode out the storm on the boat. i have never seen this many trees down in my life. i'm talking about pine trees i can't wrap my arms halfway around were snapped like toothpicks. my grandmother lost 12 of those. the only tree left standing in her yard was a 200 year old oak tree thats about 12 ft in diameter. you couldn't go anywhere, and i mean anywhere on thursday without a chainsaw. we had to cut our way to get to my grandparents. we stayed at my sister's house and we fared very well. she lost a couple tree limbs and the chimney cap, which we found in the bushes. she also had a 8x14' metal shed in the backyard. we sat in her bedroom and watched as the storm just picked it up and moved it. a tornado touched down less than a block a way and put some trees on some houses. really though, the pictures don't do it justice. the city of pensacola and all of escambia and santa rosa counties will never be the same. mobile didn't get shit compared to pensacola and gulf breeze. it pisses me off that they cover mobile more than they do pensacola. i have never been in a storm before that was so strong to where i couldn't stand up. my sister has a couple 10ft evergreen trees, the real skinny ones. one was bending over and hitting my dad's truck. we knew we needed the truck after the storm so we had to go outside and tie the tree down. this was around 1 am. the eye came ashore at 2 am. we were in the process of fixing the tree when a gust of wind came. if i had not grabbed ahold of the tree it would have knocked me over and sent me rolling. this was a very severe and a very costly storm, in a lot of ways. my prayers go out to the families that lost loved ones and to everyone else that lost property and belongings.

go to www.pensacolanewsjournal.com if you want to see pictures.

[SloNLo_350]

I am very relieved to hear you are alright!! I just found out how bad it was in Ft. Walton last night. But its good to hear the flooding wasn't TOO bad at your place. We're glad to have you back in one piece!

[sstony]

man that sounds terrible :nono: i'm glad you're back