Growing Hurricane Dennis takes aim at US Gulf coast

MIAMI, Sunday (Reuters)

Authorities urged more than 1.2 million people to evacuate as a powerful and growing Hurricane Dennis closed in on low-lying coastal areas of northwestern Florida, Alabama and Mississippi on Saturday after killing at least 32 people in Cuba and Haiti.

The hurricane had winds of 125 mph (201 kph) as it charged along a northwesterly track through the Gulf of Mexico that could take it to landfall on Sunday between Florida's northwestern panhandle and Mississippi. The area, still deeply scarred from a battering by Hurricane Ivan in September, could get as much as 12 inches of rain.

At 9 p.m. (0100 GMT), the hurricane's center was about 275 miles (442 km) south of Panama City, Florida, and was moving northwestward at 13 mph (21 kph), the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Forecasters said it could become a Category 4 hurricane, with winds of more than 130 mph (208 km) by the time it reached the coast Sunday afternoon or evening.

"We don't see any reason why this hurricane should not continue to strengthen," National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield told CNN. "People in the hurricane warning area need to be preparing for a major hurricane."

Dennis threatened key oil and natural gas fields in the Gulf of Mexico, where a quarter of U.S. production comes from. Energy companies pulled hundreds of workers off oil rigs and shut down some crude and natural gas production.

Some residents who decided to stay as Dennis approached shuttered their houses with recycled boards bearing the words "Go Away Ivan." Blue tarps covered the roofs of some homes that have yet to be repaired after last year's damaging storm.

"We're scared," said Lee Schoen, 48, a youth services worker who said she was boarding up her waterfront home on Mobile Bay in Alabama and getting out. "We're moving our valuables and things you can't replace and going to my mother-in-law's."

Before heading north through the Gulf, Dennis grazed southern Florida, leaving tens of thousands of homes and businesses without power, state officials said.

The storm had hit Cuba on Friday as a ferocious 150 mph (240 kph) hurricane but its winds weakened to 90 mph (144 kph) as it crossed the Caribbean island. It immediately regained some of its lost strength when it hit open water and skirted Key West, the popular tourist island at the end of the Florida Keys chain.

"This is a very dangerous storm," Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said, urging people to heed evacuation orders or advice out to some 700,000 people in the state.

Authorities in Alabama and Mississippi called for more than 500,000 people to leave homes in vulnerable areas.

Pensacola, Florida, looked like a ghost town on Saturday. Cars streamed east all day and service stations ran out of gasoline.

Florida officials said some 40,000 homes statewide had not been repaired from the four devastating hurricanes that hit last summer.

In Alabama, residents in Mobile and Baldwin counties received computer-generated telephone messages from emergency centers, saying, "Please prepare to leave immediately." Thousands crowded highways heading north.

Many who stayed waited in line for hours to buy generators and gas cans, which sold as quickly as they were unloaded from trucks at hardware stores. Some coastal towns were placed under 9 p.m. curfews.

"We're staying. We have faith in the Lord," said Brenda Terrance Jackson, a cook at a pizza restaurant in the evacuation area.