NAVARRE BEACH, Florida (AP) – The first hard look at the spot where Hurricane Dennis rolled ashore revealed beachfront homes scoured to their pilings, roofs torn off, buckled roads and washed-out beaches – damage that was mercifully isolated.

But distant flooded villages and rural towns also suffered pockets of destruction, and they provided a glimpse of the possible misery to come as the hurricane’s remnants sweep through the South.

“It’s total devastation,” said Steve Dunbar, who stood in muck left behind when chest-deep chocolate-brown water filled his tavern and the rest of the tiny fishing village of St Marks, 175 miles east of where 120-mph (193-kph) Dennis roared ashore Sunday afternoon.

The town of 325 people, 20 miles (32 kilometres) south of Tallahassee, had been known as one of Florida’s most scenic spots, where tourists could sit on the porch of the famed Posey’s Oyster Bar, drink a few beers and watch the sun set over the fishing fleet.

Now its handful of restaurants, taverns, the post office and lone grocery store were filled with water and mud from the receding floods, the electricity was out, and the streets were littered with beer coolers, tables, chairs and even a bar.

Dennis caused at least 26 deaths in the Caribbean, including 16 in Cuba, and a handful in the United States, including a three-year-old boy run over by his father’s car as the family was preparing to evacuate in DeFuniak Springs, a man electrocuted in Fort Lauderdale when he stepped on a fallen power line, and a Georgia man killed in his sleep by a falling poplar tree.

Meanwhile, attention was shifting to a new tropical storm that formed late Monday in the Atlantic Ocean. Tropical Storm Emily, the fifth named storm of the season, was 530 miles (853 kilometres) east-southeast of Barbados and was moving west at about 20 mph (32 kph), up from 13 mph (21 kph) on Monday. It had maximum sustained wind of about 50 mph (80 kph) and was expected to strengthen while gradually turning toward the west-northwest.

Hurricane watches were issued for Barbados, Grenada, St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines, meaning hurricane force winds could be felt by early Thursday. A tropical storm watch was issued for Tobago.

As Dennis sloshed inland and became a tropical depression, it dumped anywhere from three inches to 10 inches (seven to 25 centimetres) of rain over Alabama, Florida, Mississippi and Georgia, before stalling over the lower Ohio valley, where up to 10 inches (25 centimetres) of rain was expected. Yesterday, the dwindling storm spread rain across Missouri and Illinois, and small adjoining areas of Kentucky, Indiana and Wisconsin.