City faces 'perfect' hurricane
2005-09-02 14:50
New Orleans - A monstrous Hurricane Katrina barrelled toward New Orleans with 257km/h wind and a threat of an 8.4m storm surge, forcing a mandatory evacuation of the below-sea-level city and prayers for those who remained to face a doomsday scenario on Monday.
"Have God on your side, definitely have God on your side," Nancy Noble said on Sunday as she sat with her puppy and three friends in six lanes of one-way traffic on gridlocked Interstate 10. "It's very frightening."
Katrina intensified into a Category 5 giant over the warm water of the Gulf of Mexico, reaching top winds of 175km/h before weakening slightly on a path to hit New Orleans at around sunrise on Monday.
That would make it the city's first direct hit in 40 years and the most powerful storm ever to slam the city.
Forecasters warned that Mississippi and Alabama were also in danger because Katrina was such a big storm, with hurricane-force winds extending up to 170km from the centre.
Perfect
"The conditions have to be absolutely perfect to have a hurricane become this strong," said National Hurricane Centre Director Max Mayfield, noting that Katrina may yet be more powerful than the last Category 5 storm, 1992's Hurricane Andrew, which, at 265km/h, levelled parts of South Florida, killed 43 people and caused $31bn in damage.
"It's capable of causing catastrophic damage," Mayfield said. "Even well-built structures will have tremendous damage. Of course, what we're really worried about is the loss of lives.
"New Orleans may never be the same."
By evening, the first squalls, driving rains and lightning began hitting New Orleans. A grim Mayor Ray Nagin earlier ordered the mandatory evacuation for his city of 485 000.
"We are facing a storm that most of us have long feared," he said. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime event."
Stranded
As many as 100 000 inner-city residents didn't have the means to leave and an untold number of tourists were stranded by the closing of the airport, so the city arranged buses to take people to 10 last-resort shelters, including the Superdome.
For years, forecasters have warned of the nightmare flooding a big storm could bring to New Orleans, a bowl-shaped city bounded by the 800m-wide Mississippi River and massive Lake Pontchartrain.
As much as three metres below sea level in spots, the city is at the mercy of a network of levees, canals and pumps to keep dry.
"All indications are that this is absolutely worst-case scenario," Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Centre, said on Sunday afternoon.
Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard said some who have ridden out previous storms in the New Orleans area might not be so lucky this time.
"I'm expecting that some people who are die-hards will die hard," he said.
New Orleans has not taken a major direct hit from a hurricane since Betsy blasted the Gulf Coast in 1965. - SAPA/AP
- AP