Ivan whips up tornados
2004-09-16 20:00
Gulf Shores, Alabama - Hurricane Ivan on Thursday slammed the US coast from Alabama to Florida with fierce winds and waves, whipping up tornadoes that killed at least seven people in Florida, reports said.
Hurricane-force winds tore roofs off buildings, uprooted trees and pushed towering surf inland, flooding entire neighbourhoods across Alabama's Gulf Coast as the storm raged through the night.
After making landfall at 02:00 (06:00 GMT) between Mobile, Alabama and Pensacola, Florida with winds of 215km/h per hour, Ivan gradually began to decrease in strength.
But hundreds of thousands of people were without power in Alabama and the streets of Mobile were littered with fallen trees, smashed traffic lights and other debris.
soldiers to prevent looting
President George W Bush declared Alabama to be a victim of a major disaster so that federal aid could be sent.
Four hundred national guard were on the way to help with eventual search and rescue and to guard against looting.
At 15:00 GMT a weakened Ivan's centre was about 104km southwest of Montgomery, Alabama.
It was still packing 121km/h winds, the US national hurricane centre, warning that heavy rains and tornadoes remained a threat.
It was classified as a category one storm on the five level Saffir-Simpson scale having been a four on Wednesday night.
Ivan, one of the 16 most powerful storms to hit the United States since 1900.
It had already killed more than 70 people as it made its way across the Caribbean before entering the Gulf of Mexico.
Tornados
Ivan claimed at least seven more lives in the United States.
It spawned tornadoes across northeastern Florida, which is still recovering from the havoc of hurricanes Charley and Frances.
Ivan's winds and torrential rains were the main concern along the US Gulf Coast, where hundreds of thousands of people evacuated their homes before it arrived.
Before heading into the Gulf of Mexico, Ivan rampaged across the Caribbean, from Grenada to Cuba.
Jeanne
Meanwhile, Puerto Rico reported two deaths when another storm, Jeanne, barrelled into the island on Wednesday, while a Pacific hurricane, Javier, was moving along the Mexican coast.
Jeanne was upgraded from a tropical storm to a hurricane at dawn as it swept in off the Atlantic to lash the Dominican Republic on Thursday.
Fallen trees blocked roads and power was cut as Jeanne churned westward dumping heavy rain.
"These rains could cause life-threatening flash floods and mud slides," the US hurricane centre warned.