Hurricane Ike looms as trouble for the Gulf

KEY WEST, Fla. | With powerful Hurricane Ike on an uncertain course toward the Gulf of Mexico, many on these low-lying islands took a wait-and-see approach to evacuating Sunday, perhaps a harbinger of attitudes to come from Gulf Coast residents returning from an arduous evacuation and already showing signs of “hurricane fatigue.”

Forecasts show Ike bearing down on Cuba and skirting Key West early Tuesday on a trek to the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, slowly strengthening to perhaps Category 3 strength on its way to a landfall late in the week somewhere between the Florida Panhandle and the Texas coast.

And once again, New Orleans, still recovering from the weaker-than-expected Gustav, is squarely in the cross hairs.

In Key West, evacuation orders became mandatory Sunday for tourists and the approximately 25,000 residents alike, but traffic off the lone highway from the island was steady rather than jammed.

Mike Tilson, 24, was preparing to ride Ike out in his houseboat, only planning to evacuate if the storm takes a sudden turn to the north.

“I got tarps and champagne,” he said as he pushed a wheelbarrow of supplies including beer, ice and a loaf of bread down the dock. “It’s just a good party. I’ll stay.”

At 8 p.m. Sunday, Ike was a Category 3 hurricane with sustained winds near 120 mph, located about 30 miles east of Punto de Sama on eastern Cuba’s coast, and moving west at 14 mph. It was forecast to track over Cuba, re-emerging over the island’s western coast Tuesday morning about 100 miles south of Key West as a Category 1.

Ike was a dangerous Category 4 hurricane packing 135-mph winds a day earlier, but the National Hurricane Center in Miami said it had weakened “a little” in recent hours. Still it was a fierce storm: Hurricane force winds stretched up to 60 miles from the eye and tropical force winds nearly 145 miles outward.

President Bush declared a state of emergency for Florida because of Ike on Sunday and ordered federal money to supplement state and local response efforts.

Key West Mayor Morgan McPherson said 15,000 tourists had evacuated the region, and the Key West airport was set to close late Sunday.

Mr. McPherson warned that anyone who thinks staying through a major hurricane is “champagne time” hasn’t thought it through clearly. He said emergency vehicles would be pulled off the road if the area gets tropical-storm-force winds.

Still, many residents of the nation’s most southernmost city said they wanted to see what the storm does over Cuba and possibly reassess Monday.

At the Key West Convalescent Center, 70 sick and elderly residents were being evacuated by bus and ambulance to Sunrise on Sunday afternoon.

The reluctance to leave didn’t surprise Hugh Gladwin, the director of the Institute for Public Opinion Research at Florida International University, who has studied evacuations in Florida and after Hurricane Katrina.

“Yes, there’s always a certain number of people who won’t evacuate no matter what: they’re fatalistic - they like being in hurricanes,” he said.

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