Hurricane Ivan triggers US Gulf evacuations
Date: 15-Sep-04
Country: USA
Author: Jim Loney
Ivan, one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record, killed at least 68 people on a weeklong rampage through the Caribbean as it caused widespread damage in Grenada, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.
It ripped off roofs and downed trees and power lines when it roared past Cuba on Monday night, but the island was spared a direct hit and there were no reported casualties.
Ivan, carrying winds of up to 140 mph, threatened a wide area from the sugary beaches of the Florida Panhandle west through coastal Alabama and Mississippi to the flood-prone, historic jazz city of New Orleans, where officials told residents to get out.
"This is a very dangerous storm," said Mayor Ray Nagin, adding that Ivan's hurricane-force winds extended so far out that the city could suffer even if it struck 100 miles away.
"We're asking people to consider leaving the city if you have the wherewithal to do that."
The New Orleans area has a population of about 1 million.
Storm-weary Florida authorities, preparing for a possible third hurricane strike in just over a month, told about 543,000 people to evacuate mobile homes and flood-prone coastal areas in at least 10 counties in the western Panhandle.
Oil companies plucked thousands of workers from offshore rigs and shut down some production in the Gulf of Mexico, home of about a quarter of U.S. oil and gas output.
Ivan was not expected to directly hit the bulk of output but the storm's menacing presence made traders nervous and helped push up world oil prices.
The hurricane was forecast to thunder into the Gulf coast late on Wednesday or early on Thursday. It weakened slightly as it moved north over cooler waters but was still a dangerous Category 4 storm on the five-step hurricane intensity scale.
Its top winds were down from a peak of 165 mph on Saturday, when the U.S. National Hurricane Center said it was the sixth-strongest Atlantic hurricane on record.
MOBILE HOMES
Three counties in Mississippi ordered evacuations on Monday for people living in coastal areas or mobile homes near the coast, a spokeswoman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said.
People were also encouraged to leave in coastal areas of Baldwin and Mobile counties in Alabama.
Florida was getting ready again after Hurricane Charley on August 13 and Hurricane Frances on September 4 - storms that between them may have caused $11 billion (6.1 billion pounds) in insured damages.
"It's round three. It's evacuation day," said Craig Fugate, director of Florida Division of Emergency Management. "We ought to have this drill down pretty good."
In New Orleans, some residents in the historic French Quarter were loading up cars and leaving town.
One apartment building was putting up plywood shutters with the names of previous storms painted on them: "Georges 1999"; "Isidore 2002"; "Lili 2002."
One resident, property owner Betty DeCell, said she was sitting tight. "I never leave. Where would I go? ... I have to look after three historic houses. I love them and I have to take care of them."
At 4 p.m., the eye of Ivan was about 435 miles south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River at latitude 23.4 north and longitude 86.2 west. It was moving north-northwest at about 8 mph, the U.S. hurricane center said.
In the Alabama coastal resort town of Fairhope, near Mobile, residents at a nursing home were being helped onto buses for evacuation to Montgomery, the state capital.
"I'm just thankful I had that big old oak tree over my house cut down this year," said Terry Grigsby, a 38-year-old nursing assistant heading north with her patients.
Cuba, which ordered the evacuation of 1.3 million of its 11 million people, appeared to have escaped the worst.
The storm's eye narrowly missed landfall as it passed through the Yucatan Channel. Hurricane winds tore off roofs in coastal communities battered by high seas, and knocked down hundreds of trees and power line posts.
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