Ivan’s death toll hits 80 after lashing southern US

HURRICANE Ivan slammed into the Gulf Coast early yesterday with 130mph winds, launching tornadoes, washing out a major bridge, hurling metal signs through the night and killing at least 12 people.

Up to 15 inches of rain were expected as the storm moved inland. It weakened by late morning, but remained a Category 1 hurricane with winds of 75mph.

Ivan had already killed 68 as it passed through the Caribbean, weeks after Hurricanes Charley and Frances tore through on their treks to Florida.

When Ivan hit the Gulf Coast, it knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of people, toppled trees and ripped off roofs. In the beach resort town of Gulf Shores, where the storm’s eye came ashore, the sky glowed bright green as electrical transformers blew.

Still, many of the millions of Gulf Coast residents who spent a frightening night in shelters and boarded-up homes emerged yesterday to find that Hurricane Ivan was not the catastrophe they had initially feared.

“Ivan was nowhere near as bad as Frederic,” Mobile Police Chief Sam Cochran said, referring to the 1979 storm that devastated the Alabama coast.

New Orleans, especially vulnerable to storms as much of it lies below sea level, had wind and just a touch of rain.

Downtown Mobile was deserted early yesterday. Historic, oak-tree-lined Government Street was blocked with downed tree limbs, metal signs, roofing material and other debris.

US President George W Bush signed disaster declarations yesterday for Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, and was awaiting paperwork from Florida, press secretary Scott McClellan said.

In Florida, two people were killed when at least five tornadoes roared through Bay County. Another tornado killed five people when it struck homes in Blountstown and an eight-year-old girl died after being crushed by a tree that fell onto her mobile home in Milton.

Four ailing evacuees - a terminally ill cancer patient, two nursing home patients and a homebound patient - died after being taken from their storm-threatened southern Louisiana homes to safer parts of the state.

Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Centre in Miami, warned that the misery would spread as Ivan moved across the Southeast. “I hate to think about what’s going to happen inland,” he said.

Ivan’s waves - some up to 25 feet tall - destroyed homes on the Florida coast on Wednesday. Forecasters had said hurricane-force winds could blast the coast for nearly 20 hours.

More trouble lingered out in the Atlantic. Tropical Storm Jeanne became a hurricane yesterday in the Caribbean as it moved westward across the north coast of Puerto Rico with 80mph winds. It could approach Florida’s east coast as early as the weekend.