HURRICANE Katrina turned the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) into a “symbol of a bumbling bureaucracy” so far beyond repair it should be scrapped, senators said yesterday.

HURRICANE Katrina turned the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) into a “symbol of a bumbling bureaucracy” so far beyond repair it should be scrapped, senators said yesterday.

HURRICANE Beta pounded Nicaragua’s east coast with heavy rains and powerful winds last night as thousands sought protection in boarded-up homes or government shelters.

HURRICANE Wilma tore into the heart of Mexico’s Caribbean resort strip last night, trapping thousands of frightened tourists in darkened shelters pounded by torrential rains and shrieking winds.

HURRICANE Wilma turned into the most intense Atlantic storm ever recorded yesterday, a Category 5 monster packing 175mph wind that forecasters warned was “extremely dangerous”.

HURRICANE Rita smashed into a region that is wealthier, more mobile and much less densely populated than the one devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

HURRICANE Rita's rains sent water pouring through breaches in a patched levee yesterday, cascading into one of the city's lowest-lying neighbourhoods in a repeat of New Orleans's flooding nightmare.

HURRICANE Rita is a storm of breathtaking size, chillingly described by experts as the “perfect storm.”

HURRICANE Rita strengthened rapidly to a Category 2 hurricane as it lashed the Florida Keys with flooding rain and strong wind and sparked fears the storm could eventually bring new misery to the Gulf Coast.

HURRICANE Ophelia stalled yesterday just off North Carolina’s Outer Banks, prolonging the wind and rain which blasted the fragile barrier islands even as it appeared that the mainland had avoided severe flooding.

HURRICANE Ophelia hovered off the coast of the south-eastern US yesterday and could hit North Carolina later in the week, forecasters said.

Adam Nossiter, New Orleans

HURRICANE Ivan extended its deadly march across the Southern United States yesterday, destroying homes, swamping streets and leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power from the Gulf Coast to the Carolinas.

HURRICANE Ivan’s deadly winds and monstrous waves lashed Jamaica last night as more than half a million people were advised to evacuate.

HURRICANE Ivan, with 160mph winds, was on a direct course for Jamaica, Cuba and the hurricane-weary southern United States yesterday after devastating the island of Grenada.

HURRICANE Isabel’s flight across the mid-Atlantic was swift, but its devastation will take time to overcome.

HURRICANE Isabel left 15 people dead and knocked out power to more than 4.5 million people before weakening into a tropical depression yesterday as it raced toward Canada swamping some tidal communities along Chesapeake Bay.

HURRICANE ISABEL was able to shut down the federal government and the DC Metro system before it even made landfall yesterday afternoon, but the region’s telephone and internet providers had already dialled up their emergency reserves to weather out the storm.

A 55-year-old US contractor won the $314.9m (€303m) Christmas Day jackpot, the world’s biggest undivided lottery prize to date, and said the first thing he would do is turn over 10% to his church.