New Orleans Bracing for Tropical Storm Gustav
Article Tools Sponsored By
By ANAHAD O’CONNOR
Published: August 28, 2008
Tropical storm Gustav was gathering strength on Thursday as it continued on a collision course with the Gulf of Mexico, putting officials in Mississippi and Louisiana on high alert and sending jitters through the oil industry for the fourth straight day.
Oil Fluctuates as Gulf Storm Worries (August 28, 2008)
Times Topics: Hurricanes and Tropical Storms
After pounding Haiti and the Dominican Republic with hurricane-force winds and rain earlier in the week, Gustav was about 80 miles off the coast of east Jamaica on Thursday and gaining steam. Forecasters said the storm had winds of roughly 70 miles per hour, but would reach Category 3 speeds of 111 mph as it continued west toward the Gulf. Hurricanes are rated on a scale of 1 to 5, with Category 1 storms reaching winds of 74 mph and Category 5 storms exceeding speeds of 155 mph. Forecasters said Gustav would grow to a hurricane by the end of the day.
Emergency preparations for the storm come almost three years to the day that Hurricane Katrina slammed New Orleans, destroying levees, flooding 80 percent of the city, and killing nearly 1,500 people. If Gustav were to strike the region, it would be the first major hurricane to threaten the Gulf since 2005.
Emergency officials in Mississippi warned of evacuations, as residents flocked to stores to stock up on gas, power generators and other supplies. Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana declared a state of emergency and prepared hundreds of buses and emergency shelters to help residents flee should Gustav strike as expected on Tuesday.
Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans has already returned from the Democratic Convention in Denver to help his city prepare. And Mr. Jindal said he was ready to cancel his upcoming plans to attend the Republican Convention in Minneapolis, where he is scheduled to speak on Tuesday night, immediately after Sen. John McCain’s wife, Cindy, and just before the vice presidential nominee.
“My first responsibility is here in Louisiana,” he said at a news conference on Wednesday. “As long as the hurricane has Louisiana in its sights, this is where I’ll be. We’re still hopeful that the storm will miss us, but we’ve got to prepare as if it’s coming our way.”
Concern that the storm might wreak havoc in the Gulf prompted the evacuation of oil platforms and sent oil prices higher. One of the world’s largest offshore drillers, Transocean, evacuated 1,600 workers from its rigs in the Gulf, while Royal Dutch Shell PLC pulled nearly 400 people from its rigs. Petrobras, ConocoPhillips, and other energy companies said they were paying close attention to Gustav’s movements and were debating when to begin evacuating.
As fears spread early Thursday, oil prices climbed past $120 a barrel, and were expected to rise higher, after having sunk as low as $113 a barrel earlier in the week. The Gulf accounts for about 25 percent of the United States’ domestic crude oil production and about 15 percent of the nation’s natural gas output.
Gustav began its path of destruction on Tuesday, when it hit Haiti with hurricane force. Flooding and landslides killed at least 15 people there and another eight in the neighboring Dominican Republic. Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, is particularly vulnerable to storm-related disasters because much of its forests have been chopped down and used for fuel, leaving the country with very little tree cover.
From there, the system moved west, cutting a path across the northeast coast of Jamaica, where it now inches along at a pace of about 8 miles an hour. Forecasters say Gustav could enter the Gulf late Saturday or early Sunday, and will feed off the warm water and moist air as it grows in might, slowly building as it careers toward Louisiana.
Posted By: WILLIAM W. HEMMANS III
Thursday, August 28th 2008 at 4:45PM
You can also
click
here to view all posts by this author...
