NZ singers escape Hurricane Katrina

NEW ORLEANS - A group of Christchurch singers were among the hundreds of thousands who evacuated New Orleans this morning and fled inland to escape Hurricane Katrina.

The group of nine had to take an 850km taxi ride to escape the low-lying Gulf Coast city as the hurricane strengthened into one of the fiercest US storms ever seen.

Wendy Kington said they hired a convoy of taxis to make their escape from New Orleans to Memphis. The Christchurch group were in New Orleans for a music festival.

She said the experience had been terrifying.

"It's scary to think that we were going to be there," she told Newstalk ZB, "had it not been for those brave taxi drivers who came and rescued us this morning."

Ms Kington said there are many people, the poor and those without cars, who have been unable to get out of New Orleans and are stuck there to face the hurricane.

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.

With Katrina expected to hit in the next few hours, Highways out of Louisiana's largest city, much of which lies below sea level, were jammed and petrol 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 could topple levees and flood the city's historic French Quarter when it makes a second, and more powerful, assault on US 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."

President Bush declared an emergency in Louisiana and Mississippi and a major disaster in Florida, measures that allow federal aid to be deployed.

Ms Kington said the situation in New Orleans is unbelievable because other locals are very laid back and do not appear to believe the seriousness of the situation.

Rain is falling in New Orleans, ahead of the expected arrival of the hurricane which is expected to slam into the Louisiana coast in a few hours, bringing winds of nearly 300 km/h. The major concern is an accompanying storm surge of more than eight metres. Much of New Orleans is below sea level and the wall of water could overwhelm flood defences.

Petrol stations are running out of fuel as motorists fill up and flee the city but oil prices around the world have gone through the roof because of Hurricane Katrina. The storm has disrupted supplies from the Gulf of Mexico.

Early trading in Asian markets has seen the price of a barrel of oil surge more than $4, to more than US$70 a barrel.

RESIDENTS PREPARE

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.

Max Mayfield, director of the US National Hurricane Center, described Katrina as a "perfect" hurricane. It had grown into a Category 5 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson, with winds near 270 km/h just before 5pm EDT (9am NZ Time) on Sunday, the Miami-based US National Hurricane Center said.

Katrina was about 150 miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi River and heading northwest at 21 km/h. Hurricane force winds could be felt 105 miles 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 Labor 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

The hurricane centre warned of destructive winds along the Gulf Coast from the Florida-Alabama border, through Mississippi and west into Louisiana, and said Katrina could bring up to 15 inches of rain.

Its track would take it through key US oil and gas areas in the Gulf of Mexico, and Katrina seemed likely to affect already sky-high petrol prices. Oil rigs were evacuated and casinos along Mississippi's coast were closed.

It also endangers the port serving New Orleans, one of the most important in the world, and could do billions in damage to the city's tourism infrastructure.

Tourists on the Gulf Coast scrambled to join the mass exodus but many were left trapped as rental cars were snapped up quickly. Authorities in New Orleans said they would commandeer vehicles and private buildings if necessary.

"About all you can do at this point is pack the car with as much as you can carry, place the rest of your belongings as high in the house as you can and then get the heck out of here," said Cathe Jackson, whose house is one block from the water in Biloxi, a casino-resort town on Mississippi's coast.

"We will do everything in our power to help the people and communities affected by this storm," Bush said from his ranch in Crawford, Texas. "We cannot stress enough the danger this hurricane poses to Gulf Coast communities."

The last Category 5 to strike the area was Hurricane Camille in 1969. Camille, which just missed New Orleans but devastated parts of Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama, killing more than 250 people. Hurricane Andrew, which destroyed the city of Homestead south of Miami in 1992 and ranks as the costliest natural disaster in US history, also was a Category 5.

- REUTERS and NEWSTALK ZB