Gulf Coast Braces For Katrina

(CBS/AP)  Hurricane Katrina has become a powerful Category 3 storm with 115 mph winds.

Forecasters think it could become a major, Category 4 storm before making its second U.S. landfall Monday somewhere between Louisiana and the Florida Panhandle.

Residents and emergency crews there are starting to make preparations for Katrina. Officials in Pensacola are activating their emergency operations center today.

"It's on its way to being a major hurricane," said Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in West Miami-Dade.

Utility crews scrambled to restore power to more than 1 million customers Friday as Hurricane Katrina, blamed for six deaths and miles of flooded streets in South Florida, threatened the state with an encore visit.

Katrina was churning in the Gulf of Mexico and on a path to make landfall anywhere from the Florida Panhandle to Louisiana as early as Monday, possibly as a Category 4 storm.

"I'm so sick of this," said Pat Jackson, an interior decorator in Homestead. Her apartment building was flooded with several inches of water during Katrina's first pass across the state.

"It seems like every other week or month another one comes," she said.

Scenes of Katrina's impact were everywhere Friday — work crews sawing trees crippled by the winds; people canoeing through inundated streets; a 727 cargo plane pushed along a runway fence; sailboats resting askew on a sandy shore.

Florida has been hit by six hurricanes since last August, and the Panhandle was slammed by Hurricane Ivan last year, and then again by Hurricane Dennis this year, both Category 3 storms.

On Friday, Gov. Jeb Bush urged residents in many of the same Panhandle areas to monitor the storm and make necessary preparations.

CBS News Correspondent Mark Strassmann reports that despite the threat from dangling power lines,

people waded through flooded streets and drivers navigated roads

they couldn't see.

If Katrina hit at Category 4 strength, as forecasters say it could, it would mean sustained winds topping 130 mph.

Bush said he had asked for federal disaster assistance for Miami-Dade and Broward counties, where some residents said they were caught off guard by the gathering storm.

"Maybe we can get rid of the phrase minimal hurricane," state meteorologist Ben Nelson said Friday. "There is no such thing as a minimal hurricane."

The death toll grew to six, including three people killed by falling trees and two boaters who tried to ride out the storm in their crafts. Authorities had said the toll was seven, but revised it to six after saying one death was not storm-related.

Strassman reports that some are lucky to be alive. Tina and Edward Larson and their three children were lost at sea since yesterday after they took their 24-foot boat to sea from the Florida Keys – right into Katrina. But Friday, the Coast Guard hoisted them to safety, Strassman reports.

Risk modeling company AIR Worldwide estimated insured losses from Katrina's first landfall could approach $600 million.

Katrina, the second hurricane to hit Florida this year, grew from a disorganized 50-mph tropical storm to one with 92-mph wind gusts in a few hours Thursday.

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