Hurricane Lili hits US coast

New Orleans was lashed by rains and high winds

A weakened Hurricane Lili has hit the coast of the southern US state of Louisiana with 145km/h (90 mph) winds, after more than half a million Americans were warned to flee their homes.

It looks like we were lucky

Louisiana Governor Mike Foster

The US National Hurricane Center said Lili's northern edge hit the US Gulf Coast on the west side of Vermillion Bay, and headed inland.

< By 1400 local time (1900 GMT) the storm had lost hurricane strength, with wind speeds falling to 110km/h (70 mph).

But it has caused significant damage, toppling trees, blowing off roofs and breaking shop windows. Sugar cane fields were flattened throughout the area.

No deaths have been reported but two people were injured in a roof collapse.

Lili is the first hurricane to hit the US mainland since Irene in 1999.

Warnings

As the storm moved inland, forecasters warned anyone in its path not to be fooled by the eye, and head outside its relative calm only to be hammered by the hurricane's winds on the eye's other side.

"It's still a major storm and there will be damage," said National Hurricane Center forecaster Robbie Berg.

Click here to see a satellite image of Lili

But there was relief in Louisiana that the storm, which blew down trees and telephone poles, knocked out power and caused floods, was not as bad as it could have been.

"It looks like we were lucky," Louisiana Governor Mike Foster said.

The centre's forecasters said at 1000 (1400 GMT) that the hurricane's storm surge had boosted tide levels six to 10 feet (two to three metres) above normal, but had probably reached maximum.

However, the centre warned that the surge could still swamp low-lying areas 10 to 20 miles (15 to 30 kilometres) inland that lay in Lili's path, and said heavy rains made "dangerous flooding" likely in many areas.

The storm caused massive damage in Cuba

The Red Cross has more than 1,000 disaster relief workers at shelters across the state and scores of its emergency-response vehicles were heading for the Gulf Coast.

Lili has already cut a swathe of destruction through the Caribbean, leaving seven people dead and causing extensive damage.

Only a week ago, the Louisiana coastline was hit by Tropical Storm Isidore, which also caused widespread destruction and, officials said, $100m in damage.

Throughout the region, people spent Wednesday boarding up windows and battening down the hatches in preparation for the storm. Major highways heading out of the danger area were clogged with cars.

Shutdown

A similar storm, Hurricane Audrey, killed more than 400 people when it flooded the coast at Cameron in south-west Louisiana in 1957.

The storm forced the shutdown of Nasa Mission Control in Houston, delaying for nearly a week Wednesday's shuttle launch 900 miles (1,450 km) away at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Offshore oil and natural gas rigs have been shut down and refineries have been forced to halt operations.

About 143,000 people have been urged to leave the Louisiana coast, while in Texas officials advised the 330,000 residents surrounding Beaumont and Port Arthur to head inland.

Elsewhere in the region, Tropical Storm Kyle is posing a growing threat to Bermuda.

Forecasters said that after days drifting in the Atlantic Ocean, Kyle was showing signs of growing in the next few days.

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