Hurricane Dennis swamped homes, ripped off roofs and felled power lines and trees when it hurtled into northwest Florida on Sunday with 120-mph (190-kph) winds, strewing debris anew over an area recovering from a devastating storm last year.But despite fears among coastal residents of a repeat of the widespread damage from September?s Hurricane Ivan, the hurricane delivered a less punishing blow. ?We dodged the bullet on the most part although our beach has suffered badly again,? said Sara Comander, a spokeswoman for Walton County east of Pensacola, adding most damage would be erosion to the beach.

Dennis weakened rapidly as it moved north-northwest through Alabama. By 11 p.m. (0300 GMT) yesterday it was a tropical storm with its top winds down to 50 mph (80 kph), the US National Hurricane Center said.The storm could still cause heavy rain and possible tornadoes over central and northern Alabama, parts of Mississippi and the western Tennessee Valley, the center warned.Dennis cut power to almost half a million customers along the coast, peeled some aluminum roofs off like sardine cans, pushed at least one home into the ocean and turned some streets into rivers.

There were no reports of people killed directly by the storm although officials in Walton County, Florida, said a young boy was killed on Friday when his parents drove into him while evacuating their home ahead of the storm.Several houses and condominiums were badly damaged on Holiday Isle, offshore from Destin, said Kathleen Mitnacca, an emergency management spokeswoman in Okaloosa County. ?There is a lot of infrastructure damage. One house, a nice one, is in the Gulf now,? Mitnacca said.

Some of the worst flooding was far to the east in the tiny fishing town of St. Marks, near Tallahassee, where chest-deep water flowed through the streets. Boaters rescued people stranded in their homes by the rapidly rising water.Authorities had urged residents in vulnerable coastal areas of the Florida panhandle, Alabama and Mississippi to evacuate ahead of Dennis, and with memories fresh from Ivan, many had heeded the warnings.

<B>?In terms of wind speed, Dennis was as strong as Ivan, which came ashore near Pensacola and killed 25 people, caused $14 billion in damages and destroyed or damaged 13 oil drilling platforms in the Gulf.?

Dennis killed 32 people in a rampage through the Caribbean last week ? 10 in Cuba and 22 in Haiti ? and intensified into a very dangerous storm as it charged north up the Gulf of Mexico toward the coast on Sunday.But before it hit land on Santa Rosa Island just east of Pensacola on Sunday afternoon, Dennis weakened from a powerful category 4 hurricane to a category 3 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale.

In terms of wind speed, Dennis was as strong as Ivan, which came ashore near Pensacola and killed 25 people, caused $14 billion in damages and destroyed or damaged 13 oil drilling platforms in the Gulf.But the storm moved rapidly over land, limiting the damage it could inflict, and its strongest side hit well east of the largest city in the area, Pensacola.

Residents of Pensacola breathed a sigh of relief. ?We?re feeling very good right now, we?ve had no loss of life that I?m aware of,? the city?s mayor, John Fogg, told Fox News.President Bush declared Florida, Mississippi and Alabama disaster areas, making them eligible for federal recovery aid.Energy companies pulled 2,100 workers off oil rigs and shut down 42 percent of daily crude output and 27 percent of daily natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico, where the United States gets a quarter of its oil and gas

<B>Marc SEROTA</B>