Hanna washes ashore, quickly weakens in Alabama

By Dave Martin, AP B.J. Landrum of Laurel, Miss., sloshes across the parking lot of his condominium in Gulf Shores, Ala., on Saturday.

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MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Tropical Storm Hanna blew ashore Saturday on the Gulf Coast, pouring up to 5 inches of rain across coastal Alabama and the Florida Panhandle and knocking out power with steady winds up to 54 mph.

One death was reported in Florida.

Hanna quickly weakened as it spread inland into Georgia and was downgraded to a tropical depression, with sustained wind down to 30 mph by late afternoon.

The storm's center crossed the western end of Dauphin Island, south of Mobile, during the morning, then hit the coast near the Alabama-Mississippi line, National Weather Service meteorologist Randy McKee in Mobile said.

Rain bands and thunderstorms extended more than 200 miles east across the Panhandle, where some areas were running a rain deficit of about a foot for the year.

Two to five inches of rain fell on parts of the Panhandle during the 24 hours before the storm made landfall and it was expected to add up to six inches through Sunday when precipitation associated with the system clears the region, said Ben Nelson, a meteorologist with the Florida Division of Emergency Management in Tallahassee.

''We have had an area of abnormal dryness, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center, out in the western Panhandle,'' he said. ''So this is definitely what the doctor ordered.''

However, Hanna was presumed to have claimed the life of a body surfer at Pensacola Beach, Escambia County Sheriff's Lt. Bob Clark said.

Benjamin J. Allen, 20, a student at Pensacola Christian College, disappeared in the Gulf of Mexico at Park East about 3 p.m. CT after getting caught in a rip current, Clark said.

He said that Allen's brother, Nathan, 18, also was caught in the current, which flows away from the beach, but he managed to get back to shore. He was taken to Gulf Breeze Hospital where he was being treated in the emergency room. The brothers are from the Louisville, Ky., area.

No life guards were on duty, but red flags and signs were posted warning people to keep out of the water due to high surf and rip currents, Clark said.

The drowning would be the fifth this year and the 16th in the past two years on Santa Rosa Island. The barrier island extends about 50 miles from Pensacola on the west to Destin on the east. Most of the drownings have occurred on the west end that includes Pensacola Beach.

In Alabama, the worst of Hanna was felt on Dauphin Island, where the power was out Saturday and roads were underwater on the eastern and western ends of the island. The causeway and bridge leading to the island were closed.

"We've got a good many people who stayed on the west end of the island and we had to evacuate some people from the west end," Dauphin Island police officer G. T. Taylor said. He said no injuries or major damage were reported.

Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman declared a state of emergency for Mobile and Baldwin counties and opened the Alabama Emergency Management Agency's emergency operations center in Clanton.

''While we don't anticipate any major problems from Tropical Storm Hanna, Alabama is prepared and ready to assist local communities with more state resources if necessary,'' Siegelman said.

Emergency Management officials and the Red Cross opened three shelters in Mobile County and one shelter in Baldwin County for residents fleeing the storm.

In Baldwin County, home to the beach resort communities of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, emergency management director Leigh Anne Ryals said most of the damage was limited to downed trees and power lines and localized street flooding.

She said there were reports of beach erosion in the Orange Beach area.

Hanna brought much-needed rain to parched areas of southeastern and south-central Alabama, but some of the storm's heaviest rainfall was reported in the Florida panhandle.

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush had declared a state of emergency in all counties west of the Apalachicola River in the panhandle.

Tallahassee had road flooding, and fallen tree limbs and power outages were reported in the Pensacola area where winds gusted to 66 mph.

At one point, 20,000 homes and business were without power in the Florida panhandle, Gulf Power Co. reported.

Bridges linking the mainland to Perdido Key, west of Pensacola, and Santa Rosa Island were temporarily closed because of high wind, Escambia County Emergency Management chief Michael Hardin said.

By 4 p.m. CT, Hanna was centered about 40 miles northeast of Mobile, Ala., and was moving toward the northeast at about 12 mph. It was expected to continue that course through Sunday and to continue weakening, the National Hurricane Center said.

Tropical storm warnings were discontinued, but flood watches remained in effect for southeastern Alabama, Florida's Panhandle, southwestern and south-central Georgia and parts of South Carolina, the weather service said.

Farmers, meanwhile, were hoping for heavy rain.

"We need the rain desperately," said William Birdsong, regional extension agronomist in southeast Alabama, where rainfall has been below normal for several years. He said some farmers "have gotten less than an inch since the first of July."

"We need the rain. There's no doubt about that," said Mayor James Grimes in the town of Elba.

Forecasters expect 3-6 inches of rain to fall along Hanna's path across Georgia, the Carolinas and into the mid-Atlantic through Sunday.

But farmers in parched southeastern Alabama were disappointed when expected rainfall never came, as leftover bands of rain instead moved up the western half of the state.

"I was hoping we'd get a good inch or two but we just haven't gotten any," said Harold Raley, who grows cotton and peanuts on a farm just south of Headland.

Headland is about 15 inches short of average rainfall so far this year.

Authorities across western Alabama reported some rainfall, but said they have received no reports of damage or flooding.

Hanna was the eighth tropical storm of the 2002 Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1 and ends Nov. 30. It grew out of the season's ninth tropical depression Friday morning. The season's only hurricane, Gustav, sped into Newfoundland early Thursday.

Elsewhere, the 10th tropical depression of the season formed near Trinidad in the Windward Islands, with peak wind near 30 mph, the hurricane center said. It was moving west at 23 mph, a track that would take it over Venezuela early Sunday.