Hurricane Ivan hits US Gulf Coast in Alabama
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-09-16 16:18

Hurricane Ivan slammed into the US Gulf Coast on Thursday with destructive winds and pounding waves that ripped away beachfront homes, flooded deep inland and spawned tornadoes that killed at least two people.

Even before the eye of the enormous storm hit shore, Ivan's wrath was felt over a 400-mile stretch of the coast from the Mardi Gras city of New Orleans to the Florida Panhandle as vicious winds and heavy rain flattened trees and cut power to tens of thousands.

US authorities urged millions of people from New Orleans to northwest Florida to flee as deadly Hurricane Ivan pushed across the Gulf of Mexico on a track that could bring it to the US coast on September 15 ,2004. 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. This Reuters graphic shows the projected three day path of Hurricane Ivan, as of 10 AM CDT on September 15, 2004 (source: NOAA). [Reuters]

"Ivan is here," said Colette Boehm, spokeswoman for emergency management in Baldwin County, on the east side of Mobile Bay in Alabama.

"We are getting hurricane-force winds and they're still picking up. We have reports of rising water ... and of trees down and roofs coming off."

Three-year-old Sandra Gomez (C) and her mother Sheree Catron (front R) are rescued by civil defense members after being stranded atop their home in Canovanas, in the northeastern part of the Caribbean Island of Puerto Rico, September 15, 2004. [Reuters]

The center of the Category 4 storm -- once the sixth most powerful Atlantic hurricane on record -- was roaring over barrier islands near the Mississippi-Alabama border well before dawn, after a rampage in the Caribbean that killed 68 people.

Towering waves, torrential rainfall and winds capable of splintering mobile homes were not the only danger. At least two people died in northwest Florida when around five tornadoes touched down and damaged or destroyed up to 70 buildings, including a fire station, police said.

Thousands evacuate

A person seeks shelter in a hotel parking lot, as Hurricane Ivan moves into Pensacola, Florida, September 15, 2004. [Reuters]

Tens of thousands of people had evacuated in long streams of bumper-to-bumper traffic.

In Mobile, Alabama -- a city of 200,000 on a wide estuary directly in Ivan's path -- Mayor Mike Dow said he had insisted his own family go north. "I never play with these things. I didn't think twice about getting them out of here," he said.

Ivan was expected to submerge downtown areas of the 300-year-old city founded by the French. But not everybody heeded the appeals to evacuate.

"I have a feeling I may get a little nervous," said Robert Bantens, who laid in a stash of stress-relieving Kava Kava, a mildly narcotic South Pacific brew, for his three dogs.

"Rosy (the dog) takes it all the time but tonight everybody gets Kava Kava," the Mobile resident said.

New Orleans, a city of 1.5 million people renowned for parties and jazz bars but sitting precariously below sea level, breathed a collective sigh of relief as the storm stayed east.

But officials remained nervous that Ivan's storm surge and rains could breach levies, overwhelm pumps and flood streets with a toxic brew of sewage, chemicals and water from the Mississippi River.

New Orleans last took a direct hit from a major hurricane in 1965 when Betsy submerged parts of the city under several feet of water. That storm killed 76 people.

Billions in losses

Experts said Ivan could cause up to US$10 billion in insured losses in the United States on top of the $1 billion to $2 billion in losses in the Caribbean. Hurricanes Charley and Frances caused a collective US$11 billion in insured damages after tearing through Florida in the past four weeks.

The insured losses do not reflect lost revenues for Florida's and the Gulf Coast's tourism industries.

Nor do they include the economic costs of closing down oil rigs and refineries along the Gulf Coast, source of a quarter of U.S. oil and natural gas production.

At 1 a.m. EDT, Ivan's eye was about 40 miles south of the Alabama coast at latitude 29.7 north and longitude 87.9 west, and moving north at about 12 mph, forecasters said.

Ivan's top sustained winds were about 135 mph, making it a Category 4 hurricane, the second-highest level on forecasters' five-level Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane strength. At times during its passage through the Caribbean, its winds had measured 165 mph and forecasters said it was the sixth-strongest Atlantic hurricane on record.

As Ivan lashed northwestern Florida, the storm-weary state kept a nervous eye on the newest feature of an unusually busy Atlantic hurricane season.

Tropical Storm Jeanne dumped up to 24 inches of rain on the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico on Wednesday night and could also become a hurricane as it moves west-northwest, the hurricane center said.

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