MOBILE, Alabama (AFP) - Hurricane Ivan tore through southern Alabama, slamming the US coast from Mobile to Pensacola, Florida with fierce winds and pounding surf and spawning tornados that have killed at least two people in Florida.
Hurricane-force winds tore roofs off buildings, uprooted trees and pushed towering surf well inland, flooding entire neighborhoods from Mobile to Pensacola, as the Texas-size storm raged for hours overnight.
After making landfall at 2:00am (0600 GMT) in Mobile as a category four hurricane with winds of 215 kilometers (135 miles) per hour, Ivan`s power began to decreased to 185 kilometers (115 miels) per hour, making it a category three storm.
However, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center warned that hurricane force winds extending outward up to 170 kilometers (105 miles) from the center and tropical-force winds more than twice that distance, were spreading Ivan`s dangerous impact across Alabama, Florida and Georgia.
Ivan, one of the 16 most powerful storms to hit the United States since 1900, already killed more than 70 people as it made its way across the Caribbean before entering the Gulf of Mexico.
Ivan claimed two more lives late Wednesday when tornados it spawned ripped across northeastern Florida, as the state was still mopping up from the havoc wrought by two major hurricanes over the past month.
Local television showed footage of torn off roofs, and said about 80 homes were damaged by the tornados.
Pensacola Mayor John Fogg told CNN that a tornado tore the roof off a hospital and said the civic center, where many people had sought refuge, had also been damaged by the storm.
Emergency service managers reported more than 70,000 people without power in Pensacola, and 40,000 in Biloxi, Mississippi.
New Orleans, much of it under sea level and extremely vulnerable to hurricanes and storm surge, was spared from brunt of Ivan, although some flooding was reported in low-lying parts of Louisiana.
Ivan`s killer winds and torrential rains were the main concern along the US Gulf Coast, where hundreds of thousands of people evacuated their homes over the past days.
Already before the storm made landfall, water seeped onto the shore and in some cases into houses across a wide swath of land threatened by Ivan`s fury.
"It`s been 25 years since we had such a huge hurricane. It was long overdue. I`m afraid this is going to be the one," said retiree Rhonda Preston, as she left Mobile with her husband, dog, six cats and their valuables.
At 0900 GMT, the eye of the hurricane was inland about 65 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of Pensacola, moving north at 23 kilometers (14 miles) per hour, the National Hurricane Center said.
Meanwhile, Puerto Rico reported two deaths as tropical storm Jeanne crashed into the island and threatened to intensify into a hurricane, while a Pacific hurricane was moving along the Mexican coast.
Before heading into the Gulf of Mexico, Ivan rampaged across the Caribbean, from Grenada to Cuba.
Grenada was the worst hit by Ivan, with at least 37 people killed last week and up to 90 percent of all buildings damaged or destroyed, officials said.
In Jamaica, police put the death toll at 21 after the powerful winds from Ivan tore down houses, felled trees and destroyed roads in the nation of 2.7 million.
Seven ports closed in four states, including New Orleans, the hub of the third-largest US port complex.
Puerto Rico also suffered heavy rains and flooding as Jeanne crashed ashore.
One woman was killed when the zinc roof of her home fell on her, emergency services said, while the El Nuevo Dia daily reported that an elderly man died when he fell from his roof as he tried to install storm shutters.