At least three die as Ivan hits US

Hurricane Ivan slammed ashore in the US early today with winds of 130 mph, packing deadly tornadoes and a powerful punch of waves and rain that threatened to swamp communities from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle.

At least three people were killed.

For the millions of Gulf Coast residents who spent a frightening night in shelters and boarded-up homes, the worst could be yet to come: up to 15 inches of rain and a storm surge of up to 16 feet.

“Say a prayer, say a prayer, say a prayer, that I’ll have some place to go when I leave here,” evacuee Betty Signer said in a Mobile shelter, safe from the howling wind and sheets of rain. “We’ll see in the morning.”

The storm weakened as it moved inland, with winds of 115 mph about two hours after it hit land.

Ivan knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of people, toppled trees, ripped off roofs and sent street signs hurtling through the night.

In the beach resort town of Gulf Shores, where the storm’s eye blew ashore, the sky had a bright green glow as electrical transformers blew.

“We have never seen a hurricane of this size come into Alabama,” said Governor Bob Riley, who earlier asked President Bush to declare much of the state a disaster area, a request that was granted.

Two people were killed and more than 200 homes were damaged when at least five tornadoes roared through Florida’s Bay County.

“You want to see the natural hand of God firsthand but you don’t realize how strong it is,” said Kevin Hairless, 32, who was sightseeing in Panama City Beach, Florida, around the time of the tornadoes.

An eight-year-old girl died after a tree fell onto her mobile home in Milton, Florida and crushed her at about 2:30 a.m. (0730 BST). Her parents were unharmed.

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

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

At 5 a.m. (1000 BST) Ivan was centred about 40 miles north-west of Pensacola, Florida. and was moving slightly east of north at 14 mph.

A hurricane warning for New Orleans was lifted early today. Hurricane-force winds extended out 105 miles from the Category 3 storm that earlier killed at least 68 people across the Caribbean.

National Hurricane Centre forecasters said land east of where Ivan’s eye passed was experiencing storm surge of 10 to 16 feet, topped by large and dangerous battering waves.

An 11th-hour shift spared New Orleans a direct hit. Parts of the city saw only sporadic, light rain overnight.

Ivan’s impending invasion did not stop the jazz capital from partying – albeit earlier than usual as officials imposed a 2 p.m. city-wide curfew

The Corner Oyster Bar and Grill on New Orleans’ Jackson Square was serving up Ivan Hurricanes, a slightly altered version of the Latin Quarter’s signature three-rum fruit punch.

Britons Naomi Highland and her boyfriend, Gary Critchell, flew in from Manchester.

“We came from the rain, to the rain,” Naomi said as she snapped a picture of Critchell, umbrella overhead, standing in front of an ornately carved facade.

“We wanted to do a swamp tour,” said Critchell. “But we reckon if it floods, the swamp will come to us.

At least 260,000 homes and businesses were without power in Alabama, 36,500 in Louisiana, 50,000 in Mississippi. More than 300,000 customers were without power in the four westernmost Florida Panhandle counties. Florida was still trying to restore power to about 160,000 hit by Hurricanes Charley and Frances in recent weeks.

In the Caribbean, Tropical Storm Jeanne turned roads into raging rivers, snapped trees with its near hurricane force winds and blacked out Puerto Rico before heading for Dominican Republic and the Bahamas today.

The storm killed two people in Puerto Rico.

Jeanne, which could become a hurricane, is expected to skirt the north-east coast of the Hispaniola island, where floods in May killed more than 3,000 in the Dominican Republic and Haiti.