Deadly Hurricane Dennis strengthened into a monster storm capable of causi immense damage as it thundered toward the US Gulf Coast, forecast to hit land later yesterday somewhere near the Alabama-Florida border.

Dennis, which killed 32 people in a rampage past Haiti and over Cuba before heading into the Gulf of Mexico early on Saturday, was carrying winds of 145 mph (230 kph), with higher gusts, by early yesterday morning. The hurricane was set to hit land in an area still recovering from a battering last September by Hurricane Ivan.

Forecasters at the US National Hurricane Center said early yesterday that Dennis, which intensified as it rolled north over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico during Saturday, had strengthened into an ?extremely dangerous? category 4 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale.

Such storms carry winds of more than 130 mph (208 kph) and a threat of flooding up to six miles (10 km) inland from low-lying coastal areas. They are capable of causing major damage ? shredding mobile homes, ripping roofs off buildings, seriously damaging doors and windows and felling big trees.

?This is going to do a lot of damage before it?s all over,? Max Mayfield, director of the hurricane center, told CNN late on Saturday. Authorities in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi urged more than 1.2 million people in vulnerable low-lying areas to leave their homes and many heeded the warning, streaming away in long lines of cars all day Saturday and draining gas stations dry.

Forecasters warned Dennis could bring a storm surge of up to 19 feet (5.7 metres) above normal tide levels, with large and dangerous battering waves, and rainfall of as much as 15 inches (38 cm) in the area where it makes landfall.

At 5 a.m. EDT (0900 GMT) yesterday, the center of Dennis was about 170 miles (270 km) south of Panama City, the hurricane center said. It was heading north-northwest at about 15 mph (24 kph) on a track that would bring its eye over land sometime on Sunday afternoon.

?Some fluctuations in strength are likely prior to landfall,? the center said. Isolated tornadoes would be possible over the Florida panhandle, southwestern Georgia and southern Alabama.

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

Pensacola, a city where blue tarps still cover some houses whose roofs were damaged by Ivan, became a ghost town as residents fled the approaching storm.

Some people who decided to stay as Dennis approached shuttered their houses with recycled boards bearing the words ?Go Away Ivan.? Ivan was one of an unprecedented four hurricanes to hit Florida in the same storm season. Florida officials said some 40,000 homes statewide had not been fixed yet.

?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, brushing past the popular tourist island of Key West on the state?s southern tip. State officials said 163,000 homes and businesses were without power by Saturday evening.

The hurricane hit Cuba on Friday with 150 mph (240 kph) winds and crumpled homes, uprooted trees and downed power lines. But its winds weakened to 90 mph (145 kph) as it crossed the island before roaring away from the island of 11 million people late on Friday night

Ten people were killed in Cuba and 22 in Haiti, where the storm caused flooding as it brushed past earlier in the week.

<B>Frances KERRY</B>