Hundreds of thousands of people along the US coast from New Orleans to northwest Florida were told to leave their homes today as deadly Hurricane Ivan roared into the Gulf of Mexico after grazing western Cuba.
A building in the flooded town of La Coloma, western Cuba as Hurricane Ivan leeaves the region.
Ivan , one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record, killed at least 68 people on a weeklong rampage through the Caribbean as it caused widespread damage in Grenada, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.
Ivan
"This is a very dangerous storm," said Mayor Ray Nagin, adding that
"We're asking people to consider leaving the city if you have the wherewithal to do that," the Mayor said.
The New Orleans area has a population of about 1 million.
Storm-weary Florida authorities, preparing for a possible third hurricane strike in just over a month, told about 543,000 people to evacuate mobile homes and flood-prone coastal areas in at least 10 counties in the western Panhandle.
Oil companies plucked thousands of workers from offshore rigs and shut down some production in the Gulf of Mexico, home of about a quarter of US oil and gas output.
, carrying winds of up to 140 mph (224 kph), threatened a wide area from the sugary beaches of the Florida Panhandle west through coastal Alabama and Mississippi to the flood-prone, historic jazz city of New Orleans, where officials told residents to get out.
Ivan 's hurricane-force winds extended so far out that the city could suffer even if it struck 100 miles (160 km) away.
Ivan
The hurricane was forecast to thunder into the Gulf coast late on Wednesday or early on Thursday.
It weakened slightly as it moved north over cooler waters but was still a dangerous Category 4 storm on the five-step hurricane intensity scale.
Its top winds were down from a peak of 165 mph on Saturday, when the US National Hurricane Center said it was the sixth-strongest Atlantic hurricane on record.
was not expected to directly hit the bulk of output but the storm's menacing presence made traders nervous and helped push up world oil prices.
It ripped off roofs and downed trees and power lines when it roared past Cuba last night, but the island was spared a direct hit and there were no reported casualties.