Enlarge imageBy Greg Frost
MIAMI (Reuters) - Authorities have urged millions of people from New Orleans to northwest Florida to flee as deadly Hurricane Ivan pushes across the Gulf of Mexico on a track that could bring it to the U.S. coast tonight.
Ivan, a large and extremely dangerous storm, killed at least 68 people on a weeklong rampage through the Caribbean as it caused widespread damage in Grenada, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.
As thousands of coastal residents of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana choked roads to higher ground, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that Ivan could affect more than 6.1 million people.
Anxiety ran especially high in New Orleans, the historic jazz city sitting below sea level near the mouth of the Mississippi River and last hit by a major hurricane four decades ago.
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Mayor Ray Nagin said Ivan could flood New Orleans with up to 18 feet (5.4 metres) of water and urged people to get out.
"The window of opportunity to leave the city is quickly closing ... if you can evacuate, please do so," Nagin said, as heavy traffic clogged the main highways out.
Shopkeepers and bar owners in New Orleans’ famed French Quarter boarded up windows as residents loaded up and left town. In the quarter’s historic Jackson Square, fortune tellers and artists complained that business had all but dried up.
At the Alpine, a French Quarter night spot, bartender Connie Castagna said she had given up evacuation as an option.
"It’s a little bit late to be thinking about that, don’t you think?" she said.
Metropolitan New Orleans has a population of about 1.5 million. The last time it took a direct hurricane hit was 1965, when Betsy struck with 125 mile-per-hour (200 kph) winds, swamped the city and caused at least 75 deaths.
Ivan’s top sustained winds were near 140 mph (225 kph) at 5 a.m. EDT (10 a.m. British time). The National Hurricane Centre said water levels were already running up to one foot (0.348 metre) above normal along the north Gulf Coast. Wind speeds were rising.
OIL, GRAIN DISRUPTED
A long stretch of coast from Grand Isle, Louisiana, to Apalachicola, Florida, was under a hurricane warning, meaning the area, which includes New Orleans, should expect hurricane conditions within 24 hours.
Oil companies plucked thousands of workers from offshore platforms and shut down some refineries and rigs in the Gulf, home of about a quarter of the U.S. oil and gas output. Ivan’s menacing presence helped push up world oil prices.
U.S. grain exports via the Gulf were shut down, and traders said shipments could be halted for five days.
Florida authorities, facing 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 western counties.
Ivan was forecast to roar ashore late on Wednesday or early on Thursday, on or near the border between Mississippi and Alabama. The nearest cities include Biloxi and Pascagoula, Mississippi and Mobile, Alabama.
Ivan had weakened slightly as it moved north but was still a dangerous Category 4 storm on the five-step hurricane intensity scale, the hurricane centre said.
Its top sustained winds were down from a peak of 165 mph (265 kph) on Saturday, when it was declared the sixth-strongest Atlantic hurricane on record. But Ivan’s hurricane-force winds extended 105 miles (169 km) and it was expected to reach shore as a major hurricane, of at least Category 3 strength.
At 5 a.m. EDT, Ivan’s eye was about 220 miles (354 km) south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi at latitude 26.1 north, longitude 87.8 west, and moving north-northwest near 12 mph (19 kph), forecasters said.
Ivan killed 37 people in Grenada, 19 in Jamaica, three in Haiti, four in Venezuela, four in the Dominican Republic and one in Tobago. On Sunday, it caused widespread damage in the Cayman Islands, a British colony and offshore financial center of 45,000 people, and it grazed western Cuba on Monday.
Forecasters were also monitoring Tropical Storm Jeanne, the newest named storm of this busy Atlantic hurricane season, as it churned in the Caribbean southwest of St. Croix. Forecasters said Jeanne could intensify to hurricane strength later on Wednesday and hurricane warnings were up for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
