Hurricane Ivan Wreaks Havoc, Kills At Least 14 In Southern U.S.

GULF SHORES, Alabama (AFP) - Hurricane Ivan killed at least 14 people in the southern United States, with three states declared official disaster areas and three cities under dusk-to-dawn curfews.

President George W. Bush, who on Thursday declared Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana disaster areas, will skip weekend campaign events to observe disaster relief efforts in Alabama and Florida, the White House said Friday.

The Florida city of Pensacola, which suffered some of the worst damage from Ivan after it struck Wednesday night, is added to a list of several localities in the southern part of the state that were devastated in the past six weeks by hurricanes Charley and Frances.

With the hurricane season in full swing and extremely active, Americans were now keeping an anxious watch over Hurricane Jeanne as it battered Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, possibly on its way to the US coast.

Authorities on Thursday imposed dusk-to-dawn curfews in Pensacola and in the Alabama cities of Gulf Shores, where the storm hit the coast, and Mobile. The measure was to prevent looting and help emergency teams circulate.

Among other dangers, rescue squads in Gulf Shores, which bore the brunt of the storm, were on the lookout for nine alligators which escaped the zoo and were swimming freely in the city`s abundant floodwaters.

Hurricane-force winds tore roofs off buildings, uprooted trees and pushed towering surf inland, flooding entire neighborhoods across Alabama`s Gulf Coast as Texas-sized Ivan raged through the night after making landfall between Mobile and Pensacola.

Its 215 kilometers (135 miles) per hour winds gradually began to decrease in strength as it made its way inland, but it took eight hours before Miami-based National Hurricane Center downgraded it to a tropical storm.

At 0300 GMT Friday, Ivan`s sustained winds had dwindled to 55 kilometers (35 miles) per hour. However, the center warned that "heavy rain and flooding is still a major concern."

The center said Ivan could also spawn more tornadoes in parts of Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia as it moved northeast, gradually slowing from its current speed of 22 kilometers (14 miles) per hour.

Authorities have attributed at least 14 deaths to Ivan throughout southern United States.

At least six people were killed by tornadoes in northwestern Florida, while a youth died when a tree crashed into a mobile home and two women were found dead in the rubble of residencies, local media and authorities said.

In Louisiana, two women died while being transferred from residences for the elderly to shelters, an emergency services spokeswoman said.

Authorities in Mississippi said a man died of electrocution while fixing a television antenna, while a second man was hit by a falling tree branch.

A tree fell on a car in Georgia, killing its driver, officials said.

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 resort town of Gulf Shores, dozens of people were trapped by flood waters, which in some areas reached as deep as three meters (nine feet).

Some 2,000 Florida National Guard soldiers were headed toward northwestern Florida, the Pensacola News Journal daily 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.

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.

The island state of Grenada was the worst hit by Ivan, with at least 37 people killed, followed by Jamaica with 21 deaths, Venezuela with five, the Dominican Republic with four, Haiti with three and Tobago and the Cayman Islands with one person killed each.

Insured losses from Hurricane Ivan may be between three billion and six billion dollars in the United States and one to 2.5 billion in the Carribean, modeling firm AIR Worldwide said Thursday.

The most extensive damage was to mobile homes, roofs and light commercial structures in an area stretching from Mobile to Pensacola, AIR said.

Meanwhile, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic reported two deaths each and widespread damage from tropical storm Jeanne, which slammed into them Wedesday and Thursday respectively.

Jeanne, which was downgraded to a tropical storm, could regain hurricane strength, the US National Hurricane Center warned. It was located 100 kilometers (65 miles) northeast of Santo Domingo at 0300 GMT Friday.

It was expected to be near the southeastern Bahamas later Friday and track along the US coast over the weekend.

Mexico is breathing a momentary sigh of relief as Hurricane Javier, packing winds of 175 kilometers (110 miles) per hour, was no longer threatening Baja California but was moving north-northwest into the Pacific Ocean.