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Hurricane Katrina drenches, pummels Florida

Posted on: Thursday, 25 August 2005, 18:54 CDT

By Jane Sutton and Michael Christie

MIAMI (Reuters) - Hurricane Katrina drenched and battered Florida's densely populated southeast coast on Thursday as it knocked down trees, left hundreds of thousands without electricity and caused at least two deaths.

The core of the wet but not overly powerful storm hit just south of the Fort Lauderdale area about 7 p.m. (2300 GMT), dumping up to 10 inches of rain on southern Florida as it began moving slowly across the state toward the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

A 25-year-old man was killed after a tree brought down power cables on his car in Fort Lauderdale, WFOR television reported. Another person was also killed by a falling tree, the channel said.

The authorities said heavy rainfall could well be the greatest threat from Katrina.

"The entire south part of the peninsula is at risk for flooding," said Ed Rappaport, the center's deputy director.

Some areas could get up to 15 inches of rain, the hurricane center said.

Skies darkened, rain poured down in sheets and sharp gusts stripped branches off trees, some flying into power lines. Streets began to flood and emergency managers urged people to stay inside. Florida Power and Light, the main electricity company in the area, said about 380,000 customers, representing more than 700,000 people, were without power.

"We've got roughly 4 to 6 million people right now who are experiencing hurricane or tropical storm-force winds," said Craig Fugate, Florida's director of emergency management.

Katrina made landfall between Hallandale Beach and North Miami Beach with sustained winds of 80 mph (130 kph) and reported gusts of up to 92 mph (150 kph), the hurricane center said.

That made it a minimal Category 1 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale. Such hurricanes can damage flimsy trailer homes but rarely cause structural damage to buildings. Emergency managers urged people to leave vulnerable islands and mobile home parks, but did not order mandatory evacuations.

The storm was expected to weaken as it moved slowly westward over land. But hurricane center director Max Mayfield warned that Katrina was likely to strengthen again over Gulf waters and could slam into the Florida Panhandle as an even stronger hurricane early next week.

STOCKING UP

Punished last season by four powerful hurricanes in six weeks, Florida residents snapped up drinking water and spare batteries from stores. Some filled sandbags to try to protect their homes from flooding, but few bothered to put up hurricane shutters.

Drivers lined up to fill their cars with gasoline before the storm hit and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush urged South Floridians to conserve fuel.

"We start with a situation of very low inventories because gas companies are operating on very low margins in terms of their supply. That's bad when you combine that with increases in demand," he said. "You're going to have isolated or spotted areas where there will be shortages."

He said Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale got a shipment of 20 million gallons (90 million liters) of gasoline, which could be distributed after the storm passes.

Schools and businesses in southeast Florida closed and cruise lines rerouted their ships as the seaports shut down.

Party planners on Miami Beach canceled poolside bashes that had been organized for celebrities and fans in town for the MTV Video Music Awards. Forecasters expected the skies to clear in time for the awards show on Sunday.

In the Gulf of Mexico, Katrina's projected path would make it miss oil and natural gas rigs, but it was expected to inflict more misery on the Panhandle region pummeled by Hurricane Dennis in July and Hurricane Ivan last year.

White House spokesman Trent Duffy said President George W. Bush and federal authorities were ready to provide relief.

Forecasters have predicted an unusually high number of storms this year because the Atlantic has swung into a period of more intense storm activity.

The June-through-November Atlantic hurricane season has seen 11 named storms, a record so early in the year.

Source: REUTERS

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