Coastal communities prepare for Ivan’s arrival

APPREHENSIVE coastal residents from Florida’s Panhandle to Louisiana started boarding up windows, packing and hitting the road as powerful Hurricane Ivan headed for the Gulf Coast after ploughing across Cuba.

A hurricane watch was posted for a 420-mile-long swath from St Marks in the Florida Panhandle, just south of Tallahassee, to New Orleans and Morgan City, Louisiana.

Five Florida counties urged or ordered residents to leave yesterday.

Authorities in Louisiana's St Charles Parish ordered the mandatory evacuation of the parish's 49,000 residents. New Orleans and its suburb, Jefferson Parish, also urged residents to leave.

Alabama Governor Bob Riley ordered the evacuation of Baldwin County coastal resorts.

Ivan, which cut a deadly swath across Grenada, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands and Cuba, was a strong Category 4 hurricane with top sustained wind of 155mph, although meteorologists said it might lose some strength before hitting the Gulf Coast.

"That's a monster they've got out there. I'm not taking any chances," Irvin Bruce said as he and his wife, Lillian, packed to leave the Copa Casino in Gulfport, Mississippi.

The spot where the centre of the storm would make landfall was anyone's guess, but New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin noted that hurricane-strength wind at least 75mph was possible as far as 100 miles from Ivan's centre.

"We don't know if we're going to get a punch in the mouth or a kick in the knee. But we're going to get hit," Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard said at a news conference.

Ivan's top sustained wind was measured at 155mph yesterday, down slightly from its earlier reading of 160mph and making it a strong Category 4 storm, the National Hurricane Centre in Miami said.

The storm, one of the most powerful hurricanes to hit the Caribbean, had been blamed for at least 68 deaths. Ivan swept across western Cuba with drenching rain and 20-foot waves. Oil and gas rigs in the Gulf of Mexico were evacuated and hundreds of people abandoned fishing settlements on Mexico's Yucatan peninsula.

Panhandle residents needed no more reminders of the perils of powerful hurricanes. Hurricanes Charley and Frances caused billions in damage and were blamed for more than 50 deaths statewide; Ivan could make landfall as the triumvirate's most powerful.