New Orleans faces fury of Ivan the Terrible

More than 1.2 million people in metropolitan New Orleans were warned to get out as 140-mph Hurricane Ivan churned toward the Gulf Coast, threatening to submerge the below-sea-level city in what could be the most disastrous storm to hit in nearly 40 years.

Residents streamed inland in bumper-to-bumper traffic in an agonizingly slow exodus yesterday amid dire warnings that Ivan could overwhelm New Orleans with up to 20 feet of filthy, chemically-polluted water.

About three-quarters of a million more people along the coast in Florida, Mississippi and Alabama were also told to evacuate.

Forecasters said Ivan, blamed for at least 68 deaths in the Caribbean, could reach 160 mph and strengthen to Category 5, the highest level, by the time it blows ashore as early as tomorrow somewhere along the Gulf Coast.

With hurricane-force winds extending 105 miles from its centre – and forecast to continue as much as 150 miles inland – Ivan could cause significant damage no matter where it strikes. Officials ordered or strongly urged an estimated 1.9 million people in four states to flee to higher ground.

“I beg people on the coast: Do not ride this storm out,” Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour said, urging people in other parts of the state to open their homes to relatives, friends and co-workers.

Yesterday, Ivan was centred about 295 miles south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River and moving north-northwest at 12 mph.

The National Hurricane Centre in Miami posted a hurricane warning for about a 300-mile swathe from Apalachicola in Florida western Panhandle to New Orleans and Grand Isle in Louisiana.

Forecasters said Ivan could bring a coastal storm surge of 10 to 16 feet, topped by large, battering waves.

New Orleans, the nation’s largest city below sea level, is particularly vulnerable to flooding, and Mayor Ray Nagin was among the first to urge residents to get out while they can. The city’s Louis Armstrong Airport was ordered closed last night.

Up to 10 feet below sea level in spots, New Orleans is a bowl-shaped depression that sits between the half-mile- wide Mississippi River and Rhode Island-size Lake Pontchartrain. It relies on a system of levees, canals and huge pumps to keep dry.

The city has not taken a major direct hit from a hurricane since Betsy in 1965, when a rain storm submerged parts of the city in seven feet of water. Betsy, a Category 3 storm, was blamed for 74 deaths in Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida.

Experts said Ivan could be worse, sending water pouring over levees, flooding to the rooftops and turning streets into a toxic brew of raw sewage, gas and chemicals from nearby refineries.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Jeanne strengthened as islanders in the US territory of Puerto Rico frantically bolted the doors of their colonial homes, prepared to evacuate from lowlying areas and rushed to supermarkets to buy supplies.

The storm’s eye was expected to hit Puerto Rico’s southwest coast by tomorrow afternoon, prompting a hurricane warning in the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico where lines formed at supermarkets and islanders raced to put up hurricane shutters.

“It’s going to be a close call for Puerto Rico,” said Chris Hennon, a meteorologist with the US National Hurricane Center in Miami. “Jeanne will probably become a hurricane Wednesday.”

Yesterday, Jeanne’s centre was 40 miles southeast of St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands. Maximum sustained winds were at 60 mph, just 14 mph short of becoming a Category 1 hurricane, the weakest on a scale of five.