HURRICANE DENNIS DAMAGE ASSESSMENT
By
Alabama Forestry Commission
 

Hurricane Dennis came ashore at 3:25 p.m. at Navarre Beach near Pensacola, Florida, as a major category 3 storm with winds over 125 mph. The storm tracked northwest at 20+ mph and lost strength rapidly over land. When the hurricane crossed over into Escambia County, Alabama near Atmore, winds were still 100+ mph. Some damage to urban and rural forests were caused by high winds and tornadoes spawned by the storm.

Alabama Forestry Commission Strike Teams were deployed into the area to assist with road clearing and debris removal, however, almost all roads were open to traffic and minimal damage was reported to forested lands in the path of the storm.

A preliminary reconnaissance flight on Monday, July 11, 2005 revealed that most timber damage was confined to an estimated 30 mile wide path from the Alabama state line into the south end of Monroe County, southwest of Monroeville, Alabama, where detectable damage ended. Aerial detection crews began flying across Escambia and Monroe Counties on Tuesday and Wednesday, July 12-13, 2005, to map timber damage from hurricane Dennis. The three man crews detected minor damage in the county that was very confined to the actual path of the storm. Observers recorded the percent damage by township to compute average damage in the impacted areas. Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data was used to compute the damage by species category, and Timber Mart South average stumpage prices were used to calculate the estimated total dollar damage at $3,295,712.00.

The table below shows the forested acres damaged by county, average dollar value per acre, and the total dollar damage in each county, with totals for the original impact area.

While we realize that scattered damage occurred over several areas outside the impact zone, aerial observations indicated that damage was too light to map and calculate.  

NOTE: Damage assessment was determined using the “Forest Statistics for Alabama, 2000” (FIA data), and Timber Mart-South prices for Alabama (1st Quarter 2005).