HURRICANE Ivan approaches Gulf Coast

Waves have started to erode the beach in Alabama.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Stragglers streamed toward higher ground today on highways turned into one-way evacuation routes and surf started eroding beaches as Hurricane Ivan roared toward the Gulf Coast with 135 mph wind and its outer bands darkened the sky.
Ivan could cause significant damage no matter where it strikes, as hurricane-force wind extended up to 105 miles out from the center. Hurricane warnings were posted along a 300-mile stretch from Grand Isle, La., across coastal Mississippi and Alabama to Apalachicola, Fla.
"We're leaving today. All this is going under," said surfer Chuck Myers who was only taking pictures of the waves this morning at Gulf Shores. "We surfed it all day yesterday. It was glorious."
"This is a bad one and people need to get out," Mobile, Ala., Mayor Mike Dow said today on ABC's "Good Morning America."
Forecasters said that although Ivan, which killed at least 68 people in the Caribbean, had weakened very slightly to 135 mph today, it was still an "extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane," and its strength could fluctuate before it crashes ashore early Thursday morning somewhere along the Gulf Coast.
Twelve-foot waves already were booming ashore this morning at Gulf Shores, Ala., and starting to erode the beach. Light rain had started falling along the Florida panhandle.
Heading for safety
Fleeing to safety was not an option for some people, especially in New Orleans, the below-sea-level city where more than 1.2 million were urged to get out of the metropolitan area, warned that the city could be inundated with water up to 20 feet deep.
"They say evacuate, but they don't say how I'm supposed to do that," said Latonya Hill, who waited out the storm Tuesday sitting on her stoop. Hill, 57, lives on a disability check and money she picks up cleaning houses or baby-sitting. "If I can't walk it or get there on the bus, I don't go. I don't got a car. My daughter don't either."
No shelters had been set up in the city because of concerns about flooding and capacity, Mayor Ray Nagin said.
Nagin insisted today that the evacuation from his city had been going smoothly. "Of course we are trying to move a large number of people out of our city," he said on NBC's "Today." "We experienced gridlock on the highways. But for the most part it's subsided."
To the east, Interstate 65 in Alabama was turned into a northbound-only evacuation route this morning from the harbor city of Mobile to Montgomery.
Streets were all but deserted this morning in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., and along Mississippi's 75-mile coast, and most homes and businesses, including a number of gas stations, were boarded up.
But at Perdido Key, on the Alabama-Florida state line, a steady stream of drivers stopped along U.S. 98, several taking pictures of the churning surf. "This is almost a once-in-a-lifetime view," said Glen Phillips, who has lived in the area since 1967.
Ivan's location
At 11 a.m. EDT today, Ivan was centered about 235 miles south of Mobile, Ala., and moving north at 13 mph. Forecasters said Ivan could bring a coastal storm surge of 10 to 16 feet, topped by large waves.
Everyone from New Orleans east to Apalachicola, Fla., should be worried because even the tiniest change in the storm track now could move the location of the storm's landfall by hundreds of miles, Hector Guerrero, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center, said today.
"Even a little jog could result in considerable change," he said.
"I beg people on the coast: Do not ride this storm out," Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said, urging residents in other parts of the state to open their homes to relatives, friends and co-workers.
In Alabama, Mobile County Sheriff's Sgt. Steve Kirchharr said he didn't expect the shelters to be filled until "tropical force winds start reaching the shore and people start panicking more than they are right now."
No shelters were available in nearby Baldwin County, Ala., said assistant emergency management director Roy Wulff. The county usually uses schools as shelters, but the wind expected from Ivan "far exceeds the winds those buildings were built to withstand," he said.
No major problems were reported today on Mississippi's U.S. 49, the four-lane route from the coast north to Jackson, although it had been bumper-to-bumper late into the night, said Gulfport police Lt. Ricky Chapman said. "Right now things are running pretty smooth, but it might pick up again" as evacuation holdouts reconsider," he said.
Flooding
New Orleans is particularly vulnerable to flooding. Up to 10 feet below sea level in spots, it sits between the nearly half-mile-wide Mississippi River and Rhode Island-size Lake Pontchartrain, relying on a system of levees, canals and huge pumps to keep dry.
The city has not taken a major direct hit since Betsy in 1965, when an 8- to 10-foot storm surge submerged parts of the city in 7 feet of water. Betsy was blamed for 74 deaths in Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida.
In the New Orleans French Quarter, police stood by today as tourists took a morning walk, and bars were open.
"I ain't going nowhere cause I ain't scared," Charles "Smitty" Smith, 60, said as he sipped a morning beer at the Double Play bar in the French Quarter. "I don't care where you are. If you're in the eye of a hurricane, it doesn't matter. I believe in the Lord. ... If the Lord wants to take me, take me."