After Deluge, Danny Is Demoted to Tropical Storm

Hurricane Danny was downgraded to a tropical storm late Saturday after dumping nearly 30 inches of rain over Alabama’s resort coast, collapsing a railroad trestle and flooding seashore homes.

The hurricane’s movement was virtually nonexistent for much of the day, battering the same area without relief.

But by early evening, Danny had lost some of its circular shape, and its 80-mph winds had weakened to below the 74 mph needed to be classified as a hurricane.

“It’s starting to dissipate,” said Brian O’Hara of the Mobile National Weather Service Office.

The storm came ashore over coastal Alabama, east of Mobile Bay and 30 miles west-southwest of Pensacola, Fla. Danny was expected to weaken further as it continued drifting eastward to northeastward.

The threat of tornadoes sent thousands to emergency shelters or the safety of inland motels. At least one death was blamed on the storm. About 20,000 homes and businesses lost power.

Danny was never more than a relatively small hurricane, a far cry from Hurricane Frederic, which ravaged this seashore resort area in 1979.

Nevertheless, rainfall was extreme. In the worst hit areas of Mobile County and Dauphin Island, nearly 30 inches had fallen since early Friday.

The Mobile County Emergency Management Agency declared a state of emergency and closed all roads in the southern part of the county. Officials said the roads were underwater.

A railroad trestle collapsed under the weight of water, said Tom Jennings of the Mobile County EMA, but rail traffic had stopped because of the storm and no one was injured.

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Ground floors in some homes took in water and some roads were flooded, but major routes remained passable.

The storm’s outer bands brought rain and stormy seas to the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts.

The lone death was an unidentified man whose body was found Friday near a swamped sailboat off Fort Morgan.

Most of the property damage was torn roofs and falling tree limbs, but a four-story Gulf Shores condominium project under construction crashed in the strong wind.