GULF SHORES, United States (AFP) - Hurricane Ivan slammed the US coast from Alabama to Florida, unleashing fierce winds, waves and tornadoes, and killing at least nine people in the southern United States.
Hurricane-force winds tore roofs off buildings, uprooted trees and pushed towering surf inland, flooding entire neighborhoods across Alabama`s Gulf Coast as the storm, which was as big as Texas, raged through the night.
After making landfall at 2:00 am (0600 GMT) between Mobile, Alabama and Pensacola, Florida with winds of 215 kilometers (135 miles) per hour, Ivan gradually began to decrease in strength.
The National Hurricane Center downgraded Ivan to a tropical storm with maximum sustained winds of 97 kph (60 mph) Thursday afternoon.
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.
Around the town of Gulf Shores, dozens of people were trapped by flood waters, which in some areas reached as deep as three meters (nine feet).
President George W. Bush declared Alabama to be a victim of a major disaster so that federal aid could be sent. Bush will skip weekend campaign events in favor of traveling to Alabama and Florida to observe disaster relief efforts, the White House said.
Florida has been receiving central government aid since two earlier hurricanes, Charley and Frances, hit the state over the past six weeks.
Authorities imposed curfews in the worst-hit areas along the Gulf of Mexico coast to prevent looting and help emergency teams get around the affected zones.
Some 2,000 Florida National Guard soldiers were headed toward to northwestern Florida Thursday, the Pensacola News Journal reported on its website.
"Again, like Frances and Charley, we`re not waiting for confirmation on how bad it is," state Emergency Management Director Craig Fugate told the Florida daily.
"I`m starting to take these hurricanes personal," he said.
The National Hurricane Center warned that Ivan could spawn tornadoes in parts of Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia.
Tropical Storm Ivan was weakening over central Alabama, 40 kilometers (25 miles) south-southwest of Birmingham, Alabama, the center reported at 2100 GMT.
Ivan, one of the 16 most-powerful storms to hit the United States since 1900, had already killed more than 70 people as it made its way across the Caribbean before entering the Gulf of Mexico.
It claimed at least nine more lives in the United States.
Seven people were killed by tornadoes in northwestern Florida, while a youth died when a tree crashed into a mobile home, local media and authorities said.
In Louisiana, a woman died being transferred from a residence for the elderly to a shelter as the storm raged in Washington parish, an emergency services spokeswoman said.
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.
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.
Meanwhile, Puerto Rico reported two deaths when another storm, Jeanne, barreled into the island Wednesday, while a Pacific hurricane, Javier, was moving along the Mexican coast.
Jeanne, which was downgraded to a tropical storm, could regain hurricane strength, the hurricane center warned. It was located 85 kilometers (50 miles) from Santo Domingo Thursday afternoon.
Insured losses from Hurricane Ivan may be between three billion and six billion dollars, modeling firm AIR Worldwide said Thursday. Losses in the Caribbean will add another one billion to 2.5 billion to that total, the firm said.