DATE: Friday, July 18, 1997                 TAG: 9707180627

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A11  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   31 lines

DANNY, GROWING STRONGER, HOVERS OFF LOUISIANA COAST

The tropics are heating up.

The first storm of the year to threaten the U.S. coast was hovering off Louisiana on Friday with 60 mph winds - and gaining strength.

At 5 p.m., the center of Danny was about 110 miles south-southwest of New Orleans. A tropical storm warning and a hurricane watch were in effect for 350 miles, from Louisiana to Alabama.

The outer rain bands of the storm already were affecting the coast. Hundreds of workers left oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, and Louisiana officials encouraged coastal residents to move to safety.

``Danny is moving little,'' said Lixion Avila, a forecaster at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. ``Danny should begin to move very slowly toward the northeast. On this track, the center of Danny should cross the coast early Friday.''

``The slow movement of Danny means that heavy rains - 5 to 10 inches or higher - could occur over portions of southeastern Louisiana and southern Mississippi during the next few days,'' Avila said.

Even as it tracked Danny, the Hurricane Center was keeping tabs on another storm - the first to pop up in the tropics between Africa and the Caribbean this year.

At 5 p.m., Tropical Depression 5 was 350 miles east of the Windward Islands, moving west-northwest near 14 mph, heading toward the Lesser Antilles with 35 mph winds.

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