Hurricane Aims for Gulf Coast : Louisiana Could Bear Brunt; Thousands Flee

Hurricane Danny, packing gusts up to 92 m.p.h., churned toward the Gulf Coast Wednesday night, forcing thousands of offshore oil workers and lowland residents to evacuate.

A hurricane watch was upgraded to a hurricane warning from Freeport, Tex., to the mouth of the Mississippi River. Gale warnings and a hurricane watch remained in effect from Port Aransas to Freeport, Tex., and extended eastward from the mouth of the Mississippi River to Pensacola, Fla., the National Weather Service said.

Bands of thunderstorms from the fringes of the sprawling storm system battered the Louisiana coast, and flash flood warnings were issued.

Storm-surge flooding of five to eight feet above normal was expected near the point where the center of the hurricane makes landfall, the weather service said. Tides of two to three feet above normal were reported along the Louisiana coast, and accumulations of up to 10 inches of rain were expected in the hurricane’s path.

The hurricane’s highest sustained winds were about 75 m.p.h., but the weather service said gusts reached as high as 92 m.p.h. The storm became the season’s third hurricane when its maximum sustained winds reached 75 m.p.h. just before 6 p.m.

The storm’s center was about 200 miles south-southwest of New Orleans at midnight, according to the National Hurricane Center at Coral Gables, Fla. It was moving north-northwest at 10 to 15 m.p.h.

“The forecast is for the center to make landfall near Lake Charles sometime near noon (today),” said Clarence Vicroy, meteorologist in charge of the weather service office in Slidell, La.

That would bring it ashore across Cameron, the fishing village on the coast that was devastated in 1957 by Hurricane Audrey, which killed 526 persons.

There was a high probability that the storm’s center would pass within 65 miles of the metropolitan areas of New Iberia and New Orleans, forecasters said.

As the new landfall was forecast, official evacuation orders were given for Cameron Parish. By nightfall, 8,000 residents had left, Civil Defense Director Pete Picou said.

“We’re just hoping and praying like the dickens that the forecasters are wrong because, if not, we’re in line for a direct hit,” he said.

“All that’s left in Cameron Parish are civil defense personnel, law enforcement officers and some news people, but if things get as bad as they say they will, everybody will be moved out.”

Oil companies had every available helicopter hauling workers from offshore rigs, where thousands of workers were endangered by the storm surge.

“We’ve got everything flying every minute,” said Byron Stone, operations officer for Petroleum Helicopters Inc. in Lafayette.

In Vermilion Parish, Sheriff Ray Lemaire said 400 residents of Pecan Island were ordered out. Shelters were set up in high schools at Kaplan and Abbeville.

A steady stream of traffic flowed north along state Highway 1 out of Grand Isle, a fishing village of 2,500 due south of New Orleans where high tides and storm surges are a threat.

Jimmy Bernauer, civil defense director in St. Mary Parish, said the flood wall around Morgan City and Berwick was closed as a precaution.