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Hurricane Katrina gains power in Gulf

Posted on: Friday, 26 August 2005, 23:22 CDT

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.

Source: REUTERS

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