Residents Flee New Orleans As Hurricane Katrina Looms

Mississippi declared a state of emergency last night and residents began fleeing the vulnerable city of New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina gathered strength in the Gulf of Mexico for a second and potentially deadlier assault on the US coast after killing seven people in Florida.

Traffic began to build up on roads out of the low-lying city famed for its historic French Quarter and annual Mardi Gras parades. Officials issued mandatory evacuation orders for coastal areas and voluntary evacuation orders for others.

Ray Nagin, the Mayor of New Orleans, said he would probably call for the state’s largest city to be evacuated early today and might use the Louisiana Superdome as a giant shelter. Hurricane watches and warnings were posted for a stretch of the US Gulf coast from Louisiana to the Florida- Alabama border, alerting millions of residents to expect hurricane-force winds within 36 hours.

By about 4pm yesterday, the hurricane was 380 miles south-east of the mouth of the Mississippi River, with winds of 115 mph. The storm was larger and more powerful than when it hit Florida’s south-east coast on Thursday. Seven people were killed by the storm, police said.

The projected path could see it come ashore early on Monday anywhere between the storm-scarred Florida Panhandle and west of New Orleans. But most computer models pointed to the Louisiana- Mississippi border.

The hurricane could disrupt US oil and gas rigs in the Gulf of Mexico as it takes a similar track to Hurricane Ivan last September. Crude oil and natural gas companies accelerated evacuations and output stoppages from offshore rigs that produce a quarter of US domestic oil and gas output.

The National Hurricane Center said Katrina could become a Category 4 storm by today ” a potentially catastrophic hurricane with 131 mph-plus winds capable of widespread damage. Florida has been pummelled by six powerful hurricanes since last August, in what forecasters describe as an ‘unusually active season’. Environmental campaigners say the turbulence is a result of global warming disrupting world weather.

Katrina is the 11th storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began on 1 June. That is seven more than are usually whipped up by this stage of the season in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, the Hurricane Center said. The season ends on 30 November.

Katrina’s advance is being watched closely in Europe, which has been assaulted by weather extremes unknown for generations, from south-eastern Europe’s tumultuous rainstorms, killing 43, to tinder- dry Portugal, where 11 new fires flared yesterday despite weeks of desperate firefighting.

Hardest hit was Romania, where 31 died, many of whom drowned when water engulfed their homes. Austria, Germany, Bulgaria and Switzerland reported 12 dead, with vast areas under water. Fears remain that floodwaters could cause the river Danube to burst its banks and present further hazards.

Experts seeking an explanation point to the irregularity of the jet stream, the wriggling ribbon of fast-moving wind that drives Europe’s weather from the Atlantic. A convulsive kink last week whipped turbulence into Eastern Europe, and locked Iberia in its pocket of hot tranquillity.

‘But the jet stream is a permanent feature, it always wanders around, that’s nothing new,’ said Wayne Elliott, a weather forecaster from the Meteorological Office in Exeter. ‘The jet stream moves north in summer, south in winter, and the important thing is that it didn’t come as far south as was expected last autumn. That’s why the rains failed in Iberia, and why northern Europe is unsettled.

WWF goes further. ‘Global warming has started to exacerbate the frequency and intensity of meteorological catastrophes,’ a spokesman for the environmental group said on Friday. ‘Politicians must curb [carbon dioxide] emissions now.’