MORE COVERAGE Ivan closes in on the Gulf Coast.

NEWS • Gulf Coast is fleeing from Ivan • New Orleans may get 20-foot flood waters BUSINESS • Ivan: Local businesses in hurricane's way • Storms test wood, generator makers SPORTS • Buckeyes eye Wolfpack, storms • Hurricane Ivan postpones Louisville's game

At the company's Marriott hotel in Mobile, Ala., Columbia is bracing for a second go-round with Hurricane Ivan as it steamrolls toward the southern Gulf Coast.

"I've never had an eye hit us in 30 years, and now we get four in four weeks," said company president Bill Yung.

With Ivan's destructive core expected to land anywhere from Pensacola, Fla., to New Orleans as early as tonight, a number of Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky companies are preparing for a category 4 or 5 hurricane bearing steady winds of 140 mph or higher.

Much of New Orleans, a city all too familiar with the power of hurricanes, was substantially shut down for business Tuesday.

As a harbinger of the trouble ahead, Delta Air Lines began canceling flights from Atlanta to Mobile, Ala.; Pensacola; and Panama City, Fla., at 2 p.m. Tuesday.

However, the Atlanta-based carrier was still offering service to New Orleans from Atlanta and its hub at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.

Among the local companies keeping close tabs on Gulf Coast operations and the progress of Hurricane Ivan today:

• Procter & Gamble, which makes Folgers and Millstone coffee in New Orleans - the company's largest coffee plant - and stores it in Lacombe, La.

• Chiquita Brands, which operates a trans-shipment point for bananas and other tropical fruit in the port of Gulfport, Miss., about 60 miles east of New Orleans.

• Federated Department Stores, which owns two Macy's stores in the New Orleans area and a Burdines store in Tallahassee, Fla.

• Kroger Co., which has set up a command center in Atlanta to monitor up to 35 supermarkets that could be affected by Ivan if it passes through Alabama and Tennessee.

• Midland Co., which insures manufactured homes, boats and recreational vehicles in all of the Gulf states.

• Cincinnati Financial Corp., which offers property and auto insurance in Alabama and Florida.

"We don't write business in New Orleans or Mississippi, and our policies in Florida and Alabama were about 2.5 percent of our direct written premiums," said Cincinnati Financial spokeswoman Joan Shevchik. "But it's a category 4 hurricane, and we don't want to play it down."

Estimates of insured losses from Hurricane Ivan rose to as much as $20 billion in the United States as the storm showed fewer signs of weakening before making landfall, risk modeler Eqecat Inc. said.

Procter & Gamble employs about 600 people at its coffee processing plant and two manufacturing plants in New Orleans and a warehouse in Lacombe, just north of Lake Pontchartrain. Employees were let go Tuesday to board up their homes and evacuate their families, said company spokeswoman Tonia Hyatt.

"As of 11 a.m. Tuesday, we are not running any of our facilities as everyone is evacuating," she said. "We've taken the necessary precautions." The Folger plant is near waterways that connect Lake Pontchartrain on the city's north with the Mississippi River and could suffer flooding if levees are breached by a storm surge.

Kroger spokesman Gary Rhodes said the Cincinnati-based supermarket chain has already sent truckloads of water, batteries, flashlights and other items to stores in Ivan's targeted path. He said the company has procured refrigerated trailers, generators and dry ice in case its Alabama and Tennessee stores lose power.

Meanwhile, the hurricane held its grip on oil markets Tuesday, as shutdowns of production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico and fears of storm damage drove crude and gasoline prices higher.

Crude oil futures for October delivery rose 52 cents to settle at $44.39 Tuesday on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Crude has been trading in the $40-$45 range since hitting an all-time high of $48.70 Aug. 19.

Roughly 5,000 workers had been evacuated Tuesday off hundreds of gas and oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Alabama.

Operators have shut down more than 61 percent of the 1.7 million barrels per day of Gulf oil production, as well as 34.1 percent of the 12.3 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas produced, CBS MarketWatch said.

Oil refining giant ChevronTexaco began shutting down its massive refinery in Pascagoula, Miss., Tuesday. The refinery, which processes up to 325,000 barrels of crude oil a day, is the eighth largest in the country. Other refineries in Louisiana also were closed.

Mississippi ordered Gulf Coast casinos operated by Penn National Gaming Inc., MGM Mirage Inc., Caesars Entertainment Inc. and other gaming companies to close as the hurricane approached the state. The state Gaming Commission ordered all 12 casinos on the Gulf Coast to begin closing at noon Tuesday. Mississippi's casinos operate as dockside barges or on cruise ships tied up at the beachfront. In Gulfport, some casinos operate next to the terminal used by Chiquita to offload bananas from its plantations in Central America.

The order did not cover two casinos that Columbia Sussex owns in Vicksburg, Miss., which is sufficiently inland to avoid the storm surge that is expected if Ivan turns toward Mississippi.

While many companies on the Gulf Coast will be experiencing their first hurricane of the season, Columbia Sussex is still recovering from Charley, Frances, Ivan - and Ivan again.

Ivan delivered a heavy blow Sunday to the Cayman Islands, where Columbia Sussex owns two hotels, the Holiday Inn Grand Cayman and the Westin Casuarina Resort & Spa. Yung said while the hurricane didn't make a direct hit on the Caymans, it inflicted serious damage, although the hotels survived.

Before Ivan hit the Caymans, the eye of Hurricane Charley passed over Columbia Sussex's two hotels in Orlando, Fla., and Hurricane Frances passed over its hotel on Hutchinson Island near Stuart, Fla.

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Staff writer James Pilcher contributed, along with Bloomberg News and the Associated Press.