CANCUN, MEXICO -- Hurricane Isidore roared closer to the tip of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula late Saturday, picking up strength as it began to batter the sparsely populated coast with high winds and heavy rains.

Already a powerful category 3 hurricane with sustained winds near 125 mph, Isidore threatened to grow into a dangerous category 4 storm by Saturday night as it moved toward the warm waters of the Yucatan. A category 4 hurricane has winds of at least 131 mph.

Forecasters said Mexico, Louisiana and Texas seemed likely to bear its brunt. Emergency officials in Louisiana scheduled a conference call for Sunday, hoping to have a better idea then of the storm's path, said Terry Tullier, interim director of the New Orleans Office of Emergency Preparedness.

Preparing to evacuate

Authorities in Mexico canceled dozens of flights at Cancun's international airport and set up more than 2,000 emergency shelters to house families affected by extensive flooding the storm was expected to bring to coastal areas.

Police and soldiers evacuated the western communities of San Filipe, El Cuyo and Rio Lagartos, busing residents to higher ground. They were prepared to evacuate 50,000 more people in seven cities and towns elsewhere along the coast.

"This could be the biggest evacuation of people for a hurricane in the history of the state," said Yucatan Gov. Patricio Patron.

Expecting flash flooding, authorities also declared states of emergency in 12 cities and towns in the Yucatan and in one city in neighboring Quintanta Roo state, where Cancun is located.

At 5 p.m. EDT, the storm was about 55 miles east-northeast of Cabo Catoche on the Yucatan's northeastern tip. It was slowly drifting west at 3 mph.

Mexico declared a hurricane warning from the Mayan ruins at Tulum to the city of Progresso, an area including the island of Cozumel. On its current course the storm is expected to narrowly miss the Yucatan's coast, but it could collide with Mexico's Gulf Coast later this weekend or early next week.

Even as a steady rain fell and skies overhead became increasingly dark, the mood remained relaxed in Cancun. Surfers lined the beach waiting for hurricane-swelled waves and police said they had not seen long lines at grocery stores or hardware centers.

Tourists headed to the airport, optimistic that their flights back to the United States, Canada or Europe would not be canceled.

Isidore hit western Cuba on Friday with 100 mph winds and torrential rains, which continued into Saturday. The amount of damage was unclear, but a tour of the affected region found heavy flooding across the western part of the island.

Forecasters said the tail of the storm could bring another 10 to 15 inches of rain to Cuba.

Some communities in the extreme west were reachable only by helicopter, the Communist Youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde reported. Local reservoirs were filled to overflowing.

Authorities were analyzing the damage done to citrus crops on the small Isle of Youth, south of Cuba's main island, which was battered by the storm's high winds and heavy rains on Friday. They were also trying to determine the damage done to Cuba's lucrative tobacco industry in the western province of Pinar del Rio.

"The hurricane was a strong blow, but manageable," President Fidel Castro said during a visit to Communist Party headquarters in this western provincial capital Friday.

Activating its highly organized civil defense program, authorities asked tens of thousands of people across the nation's west to move to safer areas.

When it reached Cuba, Isidore was far weaker than Hurricane Michelle, a category 4 storm that battered the central part of the island last November, causing an estimated $1.8 billion dollars in damage to homes, crops and infrastructure.

Isidore is the second Atlantic hurricane of the 2002 season. Gustav, which dwindled out in the north Atlantic earlier this month, was the first hurricane of the season, which began June 1 and ends Nov. 30.

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On the Net:

National Hurricane Center, http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/