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Order to Clear New Orleans As Hurricane Storms In

Posted on: Tuesday, 30 August 2005, 09:00 CDT

An immediate mandatory evacuation for the southern US city of New Orleans was ordered last night as Hurricane Katrina bore down with winds up to nearly 175 mph and a threat of a massive storm surge.

Acknowledging that large numbers of people, many of them stranded tourists, would be unable to leave, the city of 485,000 people set up 10 places of last resort including the Superdome arena.

'There doesn't seem to be any relief in sight,' Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco said, joining city mayor Ray Nagin at a news conference.

The mayor called the order unprecedented, but said Katrina's storm surge would likely top the levees that protect the city from the surrounding water of Lake Pontchartrain, the Mississippi River and marshes.

The bowl-shaped city must pump water out even during normal times, and the hurricane threatened pump power.

'We are facing a storm that most of us have long feared,' Mr Nagin said.

The governor said Interstate 10, which was converted yesterday so all lanes headed one way out of town, was totally gridlocked.

At 11am local time (4pm UK time), the National Hurricane Centre said Katrina's maximum sustained wind speed had stepped up to nearly 175mph, with higher gusts.

The hurricane's eye was around 225 miles south-south-east of the mouth of the Mississippi River.

'This is a once-in-a-lifetime event,' the mayor said. 'The city of New Orleans has never seen a hurricane of this magnitude hit it directly.'

The mayor said people who opted to go to the Superdome should come with enough food and supplies to last three to five days.

A hurricane warning was in effect for the north-central Gulf Coast from Morgan City, Louisiana, to the Alabama-Florida line, meaning hurricane conditions were expected within 24 hours, the hurricane centre said.

Katrina had been blamed for nine deaths in South Florida.

The storm had the potential for storm surge flooding of up to 25ft, topped with even higher waves, as much as 15 inches of rain, and tornadoes, the National Hurricane Centre said.

Only three Category 5 hurricanes - the highest on the Saffir- Simpson scale - have hit the US since record-keeping began.

The last was 1992's Hurricane Andrew, which levelled parts of South Florida, killed 43 people and caused $31bn in damage.

The other two were the 1935 Labour Day hurricane that hit the Florida Keys and killed 600 people and Hurricane Camille, which devastated the Mississippi coast in 1969, killing 256.

The hurricane's landfall could still come in Mississippi and affect Alabama and Florida, but it looked likely to come ashore this morning on the south-eastern Louisiana coast, said Ed Rappaport, deputy director of the National Hurricane Centre in Miami.

That put New Orleans squarely in the crosshairs.

'If it came ashore with the intensity it has now and went to the New Orleans area, it would be the strongest we've had in recorded history there,' said Mr Rappaport.

'We're hoping of course there'll be a slight tapering off at least of the winds, but we can't plan on that.

'So whichever area gets hit, this is going to be a once-in-a- lifetime event for them.'

He said loss of life was 'what inevitably occurs' with a storm this strong.

'We're in for some trouble here no matter what,' he said.

Source: Western Mail

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