Hurricane Katrina gains power in Gulf

By Michael Christie

MIAMI (Reuters) – Hurricane Katrina gained power over warm
Gulf waters and revved up for a second and potentially more
deadly assault on the U.S. coast after a slow and punishing
trek across southern Florida that killed seven people.

By 11 p.m. EDT (0300 GMT) on Friday, the hurricane was 115
miles west of Key West at the tip of the Florida Keys, with
winds of 105 mph (170 kph).

The storm was expected to swing gradually northwards on a
course that could see it come ashore anywhere between the
storm-scarred Florida Panhandle and the Louisiana coast west of
the low-lying and vulnerable city of New Orleans, with U.S. oil
and gas rigs potentially in its path.

Some projections foresaw it becoming a Category 4 storm on
the five step Saffir-Simpson scale by late Sunday or early
Monday — a potentially catastrophic hurricane with 131
mph-plus (210 kph-plus) winds capable of causing widespread
damage, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said residents in the Florida
Panhandle would be ready, even as many of them had not yet been
able to fully repair their homes after being struck by
Hurricane Dennis last month or Hurricane Ivan last September.

Katrina’s torturous path across the Miami area after coming
ashore late Thursday just south of Fort Lauderdale was a timely
reminder for Florida residents that meteorologists have warned
this hurricane season could be unusually active.

Katrina also struck a bare few days after the 13th
anniversary of the deadly rampage across south Florida of
Hurricane Andrew, the most costly natural disaster in U.S.
history.

Insured losses from Katrina’s first strike were estimated
at between $600 million and $2 billion by independent
forecasting firms – little compared to the estimated $45
billion in total damages caused in 2004 by four powerful
hurricanes that struck Florida in a six-week period.

But Katrina left entire south Florida neighborhoods
thigh-deep in water, and toppled hundreds if not thousands of
trees.

POWER OUT

Boats tore loose from their moorings, small aircraft were
flipped on their backs and power lines brought down across the
area, leaving up to 1.4 million customers, or nearly 3 million
people, without electricity at the storm’s peak.

By late Friday, power had been restored to more than a
quarter, according to Florida Power & Light Co, the main
electricity company in the area. Around 1 million customers, or
roughly 2 million people, were still in the dark.

Seven people were killed by the storm, police said, many of
them struck by falling trees.

Awash under at least two feet of floodwater, Key West
experienced its fifth wettest day on record since the late
1870s, weather forecasters said.

“Who knows what we’re going to find when this wind stops,”
U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Phil Heyl told local radio after his
vessel rescued a man in Key West harbor who was adrift in a
dinghy.

Oil prices slid more than $1 a barrel on Friday after most
crude traders were convinced by predictions that Katrina would
loop around and deliver a second blow to Florida but avoid the
heart of U.S. oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico.

That bet appeared increasingly uncertain Friday evening as
computer models pointed to a more westerly track for Katrina,
and also indicated the storm could strengthen considerably.