Thousands of people wait outside the Louisiana Superdome to be let in for shelter from Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans yesterday. - REUTERS
NEW ORLEANS (AP):
MONSTROUS HURRICANE Katrina barrelled toward the Big Easy yesterday with 165mph wind and a threat of a 28-foot storm surge, forcing a mandatory evacuation.
A last-ditch Superdome shelter and prayers are all that's left for those remaining to face the doomsday scenario this below-sea-level city has long dreaded.
Katrina intensified into a Category Five giant over the warm water of the Gulf of Mexico on a path to make landfall at sunrise today in the heart of New Orleans. That would make it the city's first direct hit in 40 years and the most powerful storm ever to slam the city. It eased slightly during the day, with top sustained wind down from 175 mph, but forecasters said fluctuations were likely.
Forecasters warned that Mississippi was also in danger because Katrina was such a big storm - with hurricane-force winds extending up to 105 miles (169 kilometres) from the centre - that even areas far from the landfall could be devastated.
SCARED AS EVER
"I'm really scared," New Orleans resident Linda Young said as she filled her gas tank. "I've been through hurricanes, but this one scares me. I think everybody needs to get out."
U.S. crude oil futures surged more than US$4 in opening trade today, hitting a new record high above US$70 a barrel after Hurricane Katrina forced Gulf of Mexico producers to shut in more than a third of their output.
Showers began falling on south-eastern Louisiana and other parts of the Gulf Coast yesterday afternoon, accompanied by pounding surf as far east as Florida, the first hints of a storm with a potential surge of 18 to 28 feet (5.4 meters to 8.4 metres), even bigger waves and as much as 15 inches (38 centimetres) of rain.
"We are facing a storm that most of us have long feared," Mayor C. Ray Nagin said in ordering the mandatory evacuation for his city of 485,000 people, surrounded by suburbs of a million more. "The storm surge will most likely topple our levee system."
Conceding that as many as 100,000 inner-city residents didn't have the means to leave and an untold number of tourists were stranded by the closing of the airport, the city arranged buses to take people to 10 last-resort shelters, including the Superdome arena.
Some experts say Katrina could turn one of America's most charming cities into a vast cesspool tainted with toxic chemicals, human waste and even coffins released by floodwaters from the city's legendary cemeteries.
"All indications are that this is absolutely worst-case scenario," Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, said Sunday afternoon.
At 5:00 p.m. EDT (2100GMT), Katrina's eye was about 150 miles (240 kilometres) south-south-east of the mouth of the Mississippi River. The storm was moving toward the north-west at nearly 13 mph (21 kph) and was expected to turn toward the north.
