Here is the Meat -- from National Geographic:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/07/0711_050711_hurricane_2.html *******snipped **************
The hurricane steadily regained strength as it moved northward. By 6 p.m.
Saturday its winds had increased to 115 miles (185 kilometers) an hour,
making Dennis a major hurricane.
But between then and 4 a.m. Sunday, Dennis underwent a meteorological
phenomenon often referred to as bombing out. In only ten hours the storm's
strongest winds leaped to 145 miles (230 kilometers) an hour. By early
Sunday morning city officials in Mobile were confronting a potential
catastrophe.
At that time forecasters expected Dennis to charge into Mobile Bay. The bay
would have acted as a giant funnel, channeling a storm surge of perhaps 17
feet (5 meters) into downtown Mobile. The surge would have flooded a part
of the city where many residents hadn't evacuated, because they either had
no place to go or were unable to leave.
Mobile officials called in the city's bus drivers early Sunday morning. All
residents who wanted to leave were taken to a shelter on the west side of
the city.
"It was a phenomenal effort," Mobile fire department captain Debbie Bryars
said. "The emergency-management department got the drivers to come in and
got the word out about the evacuation."
Hundreds of people were moved out of harm's way, Bryars said.
But as Dennis bore down on the narrow Alabama coast Sunday afternoon,
several factors intervened to diminish its winds and drag it away from
Mobile Bay.
How Dennis Was Defanged
Randy McKee, chief meteorologist at the National Weather Service's Mobile
office, said Dennis's power was diminished when it went through an "eye
wall replacement."
This process often happens to very intense hurricanes, such as Dennis, when
a second wall of intense thunderstorms begins forming around the storm's
existing eye. The eye wall acts as a giant noose, choking the hurricane's
momentum and reducing its winds.
The thunderstorms forming and dissipating around Dennis's eye also pulled
the storm off its Mobile-bound course.
The thunderstorms had the same effect as putting a small weight on a
spinning top, McKee said. "If you had the top spinning perfectly and you
put a little weight on one place, it would affect the top's path," he said.
"That little hiccup in there was enough to move the hurricane's landfall
from Mobile Bay to the east," McKee said.
Hurricane Dennis ran into another impediment as its eye drew within 150
miles (240 kilometers) of the Alabama coast. At that point the hurricane
began crossing over seas that had been churned up by Tropical Storm Cindy
late last week. The churning had cooled the water, depriving Dennis of the
warm seas it needed to maintain its fearsome winds.
So between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. Sunday, Dennis became a different hurricane.
It was still potent but not quite the monster it had been, and it was
headed away from the heavily populated cities of Mobile and nearby
Pensacola, Florida.
************also**************
The hurricane season usually becomes busy in mid-August and reaches its
peak around September 10. But so far this year, four named storms already
have formed. That's the first time on record that this has happened, and
the usual peak of the hurricane season is still two months away.
AmbergrisCaye.com 
we survived 4 HORRORCANES last year and it seems like yesterday..such is life in Florida!
