The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page 251

12A THE PALM BEACH POST SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2004 msl CANE IVAN Florida's devastation All bridges to islands damaged, officials say 'It was like you Just took a bunch of toothpicks and slung them SGT. TONY PHINNEY, Calhoun County Sheriffs Office "1 Florida rushes to repair the 1-10 bridge over Escambia Bay. i I X- 1 o1 ir ftlifil- -1 I ll i Stall photos 6y GARY C0RONADO Katrina Coleman, 17 (from left), T.J. Aycock, 16, Kyla Hires, 16, and Adrianna Danny Houghs in Blountstown, west of Tallahassee. A tornado spawned by White, 16, look Friday at the debris of the destroyed home of Melissa and Hurricane Ivan tossed a mobile home into the house Wednesday evening.

By DARA KAM Special to The Palm Beach Post TALLAHASSEE Every barrier-island bridge west of Bay County in Florida's Panhandle sustained some type of damage from Hurricane Ivan, transportation officials said Friday. Transportation teams worked round-the-clock evaluating the structures and roads and making emergency repairs. By Friday night three bridges had been reopened to allow search-and-rescue teams to reach areas cut off from the mainland. Of greatest concern is the Interstate 10 bridge over Escambia Bay, which connects Santa Rosa and Escambia counties. A 3uarter-mile section was washed away, and le bridge probably will have to be rebuilt at a cost of 100 million to $200 million, said Jose Abreu, secretary of the Florida Department of Transportation.

Friday night the state was negotiating an emergency $26.5 million contract with Georgia-based Gilbert Southern Corp. to make two lanes passable within 24 days and four lanes within 90 days. The company would be paid $250,000 for each day the project is completed ahead of schedule, with an incentive cap of $3.5 million. It would lose $250,000 a day if it finishes behind schedule. Abreu conceded the timetable was "very aggressive" but said he thought the contract was reasonable.

"For every day that" closed, the economic impact is tenfold," he said. He said he was surprised by the collapse, which was caused when air was trapped under the surface, lifting portions of the deck off the pilings. "I did not foresee the 1-10 situation as even being a possibility," he said. Transportation officials plan to erect a "tent city" for up to 400 workers. Hotels might not be available because it could take up to four weeks to return power in the hardest-hit counties, Escambia and Santa Rosa.

No information was available Friday on the truck driver whose vehicle was left dangling over the eastbound edge of the bridge Thursday. Officials fear other vehicles may have been on the bridge when it collapsed. The Bob Sikes Bridge, connecting Gulf Breeze to Pensacola Beach, was reopened for search-and-rescue workers only after officials were able to fill in approaches with sand. Damage was estimated at $800,000. In Okaloosa County, a 2-mile stretch of U.S.

98, a four-lane coastal highway that was completely destroyed, will cost an estimated $5 million to repair. Officials want motorists to stay off the road so emergency workers can get to barrier islands and coastal communities that suffered severe wind damage and flooding. The situation in the Panhandle is very serious," said Thaddeus Cohen, secretary of the Department of Community Affairs. "It is not safe (for evacuees) to come back at this time." i Almost no place safe in tornado, town learns tJ' II. ii lite, ftyytm-) It T.

J. fci, i Nicholas Girardot (left) and Patrick Coleman help the Houghs family look for belongings Friday in Blountstown. top of the house she was in. Once a tornado warning Is Issued, people may have less than 10 minutes to get to shelter. CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC Pianist Al Martin's playing helps soothe many anxious souls.

By JOHN PACENT1 Palm Beach Post Staff Writer By KIMBERLY MILLER Palm Beach Post Staff Writer BLOUNTSTOWN A deafening roar drove 17-year-old Katrina Coleman into the bathroom Wednesday night Crouched with a friend, she put her fingers in her ears and shut her eyes tight She prayed so as not to scream and she never lost consciousness. Next door, Donna Faye Terry-Reed flew into the bathtub, sandwiching her 16-year-old daughter Tiffany between herself and a cousin who lay on top of them both for protection. One mile away, 11-year-old Reid Barton and his family saw the tornado warning on their battery-powered television. They ran to the bathroom also, but only five people could fit and seven more spilled into the hallway. Reid tucked his face between his knees and held a pillow over his head.

Someone covered him with his grandmother's thick quilt He also prayed. "Lord, protect us," he offered silently. "If I do die tonight I want to go to heaven with you." Within a few minutes, before Hurricane Ivan made landfall, a tornado cut a 5-mile-long swath of land to shreds in this rural town of 2,500 after touching down just west of Stafford Creek at about 9:30 p.m. A half-mile wide and with winds pushing possibly as high as 157 mph, the tornado buzzed through trees and brush in the dark before coming to a small cluster of mobile and wood-frame homes off State Road Alternate 69A There, it killed four people. James Melvin Terry, 55, and his daughter Donna Faye Terry-Reed, 35, were killed in a double-wide trailer when the tornado tumbled it over, lifted it and dropped it on the wood-frame home of Melissa and Danny Houghs, where Coleman cowered in the bathroom.

Also, James Marshall, 41, and his wife, Mary Lee Marshall, 37, were killed when their mobile home was flung from its foundation, landing across the street. "If this had been in. a major trailer park, we wouldn't be talking about four people dead we'd be talking about trailer loads of body bags," said Sonny O'Bryan, emergency management director for Calhoun County. "Hundreds of people." Authorities began issuing Phinney, who arrived next said the beams from their flashlights were nearly useless as wind-driven rain smothered the light He just picked an area and started moving debris. "It was like you just took a bunch of toothpicks and slung them out" Phinney said about what was left of the homes.

"There wasn't a trailer or a house in sight just piles." Phinney saw a young girl sitting up and another man calling for help. He helped the girl stand and then realized that under the debris he was straddling was a woman. He saw her white canvas tennis shoe. When he uncovered her, he realized she was dead. "She had Sheetrock on her, two-by-fours, studs.

She was covered," Phinney said. On Friday, relatives picked through the debris scattered along a path the size of a football field. They looked for photos and other keepsakes. Strewn across the site were familiar items: someone's country-music record collection, stuffed animals, a Christmas stocking, textbooks from Chi-pola Junior College. A soggy Bible lay open to Romans 1:21, with purple highlighter marking up the chapter on God's righteous judgment Everyone's belongings were mixed together.

Sgt Terry said someone brought him a photo of himself that was in his uncle's house. They found it about a quarter-mile away. Reid Barton, the 11-year-old whose family was spared in the tornado, knew the Terrys all his life. He tried to help. "I've got a watch here," he said, pulling the broken timepiece from his pocket "I know it's someone's.

I'm asking people. They might want it back." kimbertymlllerpbpost.com Mary Folsom, sister of James Melvin Terry, learned from Tiffany of how her relatives had tried to save themselves by going to the bathroom. Tiffany and three other relatives survived. But Tiffany, who suffered a dislocated shoulder, doesn't remember anything after getting into the bathtub. Ironically, Donna Faye Terrv-Reed had abandoned her single-wide trailer for the safety of her father's double-wide.

Her trailer sat nearly unscathed less than 100 yards from the remnants of her father's home. After the tornado was over, Coleman lay on her side, covered with so much debris that she couldn't feel the wind or rain pelting Blountstown. She screamed in the dark, but her voice was muffled by a closet that sat sideways in front of her. A friend who was in the bathroom with her lay nearby, and the two told each other to hang on and wait for help. Sgt.

Tony Phinney of the Calhoun County Sheriffs Office had just finished securing the courthouse for the oncoming hurricane when he heard the warning issued. He took his family to a nearby firehouse for shelter before receiving the emergency call at 9:35 p.m. that would take him to the wreckage on 69A But he wasn't the first one there. Sgt Adam Terry, nephew of James Melvin Terry, was on the road when he got the call. "I've been in this business 14 years, and I live in a small county with a lot of family," Terry said Friday.

"It's never easy." People were screaming when Sgt Terry arrived at the scene. He couldn't tell whether thev were male or female or make out what they were saying. The yells came from the piles of vreckage. tornado watches earlier in the day Wednesday. As Hurricane Ivan approached, voluntary evacuations of mobile homes began two days before that Bob Goree, the warning coordinator meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Tallahassee, said the tornado that hit Blountstown hadn't yet been ranked but that most tornados that precede hurricanes are ranked F0 to F2, with winds up to 157 mph.

Goree said 26 tornadoes were reported during Ivan's Florida tirade. Once a tornado warning is issued, people may have less than 10 minutes to get to shelter. But officials say they struggle with getting the public to react to tornadoes because of their randomness and lightning-quick strikes. "It's just human nature," he said. "But the responsibility has to be on the individual." Coleman thought she was in a safe place Wednesday night She watched from the sofa of the wood-frame house as tornado warnings were issued in counties all around Calhoun.

But she didn't see the one that said a tornado was headed her way. She just reacted to the noise. It was so loud, she said, that she couldn't hear anything else, even as she knew glass was breaking and wood was splintering all around her. "The noise just got closer and closer, and then the house started shaking, and then we just got picked up and flung," said Coleman, who would learn later that the Terry home was pitched on PENSACOLA As Hurricane Ivan came ashore during the night refugees took comfort in the stylings of pianist Al Martin at a Ramada Inn just off Interstate 10. Martin didn't have to come in, but felt he could do some good for some anxious souls.

As it turned out he sparked a hurricane party. Tourists who had fled from the beach and residents who had boarded up their homes near the water sang and danced to songs such as Afy Girt and the appropriately named Strangers in the Night. The Ramada lost power long before Ivan even showed its face late Wednesday. "I thought I can really help these people keep their minds off the weather," Martin said as the bartender hustled up beer and mixed drinks. Wanda Martinez of Woodland Hills, had come to Pensacola for a Christian women's conference and some sun.

Now she found herself in a hot hotel. She said Martin really buoyed her spirits. "I've been singing all night" she said. This guy is so awesome. He knows every song." Martin confided in a whisper "I really only know five songs real good and I bluff the rest of them." Martinez's housemate, Pattie Marie, said Martin reminded her of the band on the Titanic that kept playing even as the ship was sinking.

"I look around at all these people who can lose everything they own and my heart just goes out to them," she said. Johnpacentlpbpost.coni.