Hurricane Dennis thundered toward the US Gulf Coast today with ferocious winds and waves that threatened potentially massive destruction in an area still bearing the scars of the last storm season.
After killing 32 people in Cuba and Haiti in the Caribbean, Dennis roared northward in the Gulf of Mexico with 140 mph (226 kph) winds capable of shredding roofs, and a 10- to 15-foot (3 metre to 4.6 metre) storm surge that could swamp towns.
By mid-morning local time Dennis' winds had weakened by 5 mph (8 kph) from earlier in the morning as the sprawling storm swept over slightly cooler waters in the northern Gulf. But it remained a Category 4 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale - stronger than Hurricane Ivan was when it came ashore last September and killed 25 people, caused $14 billion in damages and destroyed or damaged 13 oil drilling platforms in the Gulf.
"We still think it'll make landfall at Category 4 or borderline Category 3 and 4," Ed Rappaport, deputy director of the US National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
Authorities in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi urged more than 1.2 million people in vulnerable low-lying areas to leave their homes and many heeded the warning, streaming away in long lines of cars all day yesterday.
In Pensacola, emergency officials told residents who decided to ride the storm out at home to write their names in waterproof ink across their chests in case they were killed and needed to be identified, WFOR television reported.
The core of the hurricane’s most intense winds was expected to come ashore by 4 pm (8pm Irish time), state officials said. Sheets of rain raced across the choppy water at Pensacola, where blue tarps still cover houses whose roofs were damaged by Ivan, and forecasters warned that Dennis could bring rainfall of 15 inches (38 cm) in the area where it makes landfall.
Energy companies pulled workers off oil rigs and shut down some crude and natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico, where the United States gets a quarter of its oil and gas.
Before heading north through the Gulf, Dennis brushed past the popular tourist island of Key West on Florida's southern tip. State officials said around 100,000 houses and businesses were without power.
The hurricane hit Cuba on Friday and crumpled houses, uprooted trees and downed power lines. But its winds weakened to 90 mph (145 kph) as it crossed the island of 11 million people before roaring into the Gulf late on Friday night Ten people were killed in Cuba and 22 in Haiti.