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New Orleans evacuates as Katrina strengthens

NEW ORLEANS - Hundreds of thousands of New Orleans residents fled inland on Sunday as Hurricane Katrina strengthened into one of the fiercest U.S. storms ever seen and barrelled towards the low-lying Gulf Coast city.

With Katrina expected to hit around sunrise on Monday, Highways out of Louisiana's largest city, much of which lies below sea level, were jammed and gasoline stations and convenience stores reported long lines for water and other supplies after city officials ordered 485,000 people to leave.

Mayor Ray Nagin warned the hurricane's storm surge of up to 28 feet (8.5 metres) could topple levees and flood the city's historic French Quarter when it makes a second, and more powerful, assault on U.S. shores after killing seven people in Florida on Thursday.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I wish I had better news for you but we are facing a storm that most of us have feared," Nagin told a news conference after reading out a mandatory evacuation order. "This is a threat that we've never faced before."

In the French Quarter, shopkeepers sandbagged art galleries and boarded up bars and restaurants in preparation for the storm. Police and fire officials took to the streets with bullhorns, alerting residents of the coming danger.

Those who could not join the exodus were advised to head to about a dozen shelters in the city, one of which is the Louisiana Superdome, home to the National Football League's New Orleans Saints.

Max Mayfield, director of the U.S. National Hurricane Centre, described Katrina as a "perfect" hurricane. It had grown into a Category 5 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson, with winds near 165 mph (270 kph) just before 5 p.m. EDT (10:00 p.m. British time) on Sunday, the Miami-based U.S. National Hurricane Centre said.

Katrina was about 150 miles (246 km) south of the mouth of the Mississippi River and heading northwest at 13 mph (21 kph). Hurricane force winds could be felt 105 miles (170 km) out from the centre.

Katrina had a central pressure -- a measure of a storm's intensity -- of 902 millibars, which would make it one of the four strongest storms on record. The Labour Day hurricane of 1935 that hit the Florida Keys, killing some 600 people, was the strongest with a minimum central pressure of 892 millibars on landfall.

"The lower the pressure, the stronger the winds and that is exactly what is happening here with Katrina," Mayfield told CNN.

15 INCHES OF RAIN POSSIBLE

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