Hurricane Gustav cat 4

[funtime2 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close funtime2]

Hurricane Gustav has become a Category 4 hurricane, with maximum winds near 145 mph.

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

Those poor people on the Gulf Coast and TS Hanna right behind

Gustav swells to dangerous Cat 4 storm off Cuba - Yahoo! News

Gustav swells to dangerous Cat 4 storm off Cuba By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer
21 minutes ago



HAVANA - Gustav howled into Cuba's Isla de Juventud as a monstrous Category 4 hurricane on Saturday while both Cubans and Americans scrambled to flee the path of the fast-growing storm.

Forecasters said it could gain yet more power, becoming a top-scale hurricane with 160 mph winds in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday, before weakening a little ahead of a likely collision on Monday with the U.S. coast.

More than 240,000 Cubans were being evacuated — some hurriedly — as the storm bore down on the nation's tobacco-rich western tip. Across the Gulf of Mexico, Americans made wary by Hurricane Katrina streamed out of New Orleans and other coastal cities.

Gustav already has killed 81 people by triggering floods and landslides in other Caribbean nations.

Lights flickered in Cuba's capital as shrieking winds blasted sheets of rain sideways though the streets and whipped angry waves against the famed seaside Malecon boulevard. State television stations went dark several times.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Gustav had sustained winds of 145 mph — with higher gusts — as the heart of the storm began hitting Cuba's outlying island province of Isla de Juventud, where officials cut power to many areas.

"The rain is not so intense, but there is a lot, a lot of wind," said Isabel Alarcon from Nueva Gerona, the largest city on the island of 87,000 people. "The officials, they have told us the wind will be bad first but then the rain could cause flooding into the night."

The government's AIN news agency said officials were evacuating some 190,000 people from low-lying parts of westernmost Cuba, Pinar del Rio province, where the tobacco for Cuba's famed cigars is grown. AIN reported that 50,000 already had been evacuated farther east.

Cuba halted all buses and trains to and from Havana where some shuttered stores had hand-scrawled "closed for evacuation" signs plastered to their doors. At those still open, residents formed lines to stock up on bread. Authorities boarded up banks, restaurants and hotels and cars waiting to fill their tanks stretched from gas stations.

"It's very big and we've got to get ready for what's coming," said Jesus Hernandez, a 60-year-old retiree who was using an electric drill to reinforce the roof of his rickety front porch.

By Saturday afternoon, Gustav was about 110 miles south of Havana and it was moving northwest near 14 mph.

Hurricane force winds extended out 70 miles in some places.

The U.S. naval base at Guantanamo, Cuba, was hundreds of miles to the east, out of the storm's path.

Gustav rolled over the Cayman Islands Friday with fierce winds that tore down trees and power lines while destroying docks and tossing boats ashore, but there was little major damage and no deaths were reported.

Haiti's Interior Ministry on Saturday raised the hurricane death toll there to 66 from 59 and Jamaica raised its count to seven from four. Gustav also killed eight people in the Dominican Republic early in the week.

Gustav was projected to hit the U.S. Gulf coast roughly around Louisiana on Monday, though forecasters cautioned that the track could vary.

People poured out of New Orleans along highways Saturday and the government announced plans for broader evacuations.

Meanwhile, the hurricane center said Tropical Storm Hanna was projected to near the Turks and Caicos Islands late Sunday or on Monday, then curl through the Bahamas by early next week before possibly threatening Cuba.
Tropical Storm HANNA

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

Why I rarely if ever post hurricane season.

Gustav at Category 3; Hanna Still a Tropical Storm
Today, Gustav is a Category 3 hurricane with winds of 120 mph. At 11:00 a.m. EDT, the hurricane was 325 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River and 410 miles southeast of New Orleans.

Gustav is expected to strengthen today and make landfall as a strong Category 3 hurricane, possibly a Category 4 hurricane before making landfall midday Monday along the southern coast of Louisiana, most likely in Terrebonne or Lafourche parish.

A hurricane warning is in effect from Cameron, La., to the Alabama/Florida border, including New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain. A tropical storm warning and hurricane watch are in effect east of the Alabama/Florida border to the Ochlockonee River and from west of Cameron, La., to High Island, Texas.

Hurricane-force winds extend 70 miles from the storm center, with tropical storm-force winds extending 200 miles from the center. The estimated central pressure is 958 mb, or 28.29 inches.

Gustav is pulling away from Cuba and the 150-mph winds reported on the island are diminishing. One to three inches of rain is expected through Sunday night for the Florida Keys and extreme South Florida.

The brisk northwest movement of Gustav is expected to continue through today and tonight. This will bring tropical-storm conditions to the coast this evening and to New Orleans after midnight.

Hurricane conditions will develop on the Louisiana coast by early Monday morning and are possible in New Orleans by mid to late morning. A storm surge of 15-20 feet, with locally higher amounts, is expected on the Gulf coast near and just east of where the center makes landfall.

Although Louisiana is bracing for the worst effects from Gustav, residents from the upper Texas Coast to the western Florida Panhandle should pay close attention for any shifts in the forecast track.

Gustav is expected to slow significantly as it pushes inland, which could result in major flooding on Tuesday and Wednesday across inland Louisiana and eastern Texas.

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At 8:00 a.m. EDT Sunday, Tropical Storm Hanna was located near 23.2 north, 68.5 west, or 155 miles east-northeast of Grand Turk Island. Hanna is moving to the west-northwest at 8 mph with maximum-sustained winds estimated near 60 mph.

Tropical storm-force winds extend outward up to 200 miles. The estimated central pressure in Hanna is 999 millibars, or 29.50 inches.

A tropical storm warning is in effect for the Turks and Caicos, while a tropical storm watch is in effect for the southeastern Bahamas.

Hanna continues to interact with an upper-level low to the west. The interaction should prevent Hanna from intensifying through Monday. While rapid strengthening is unlikely, Hanna could reach hurricane strength by Tuesday as it moves slowly to the west.

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A tropical wave just southwest of the Cape Verde Islands along 30 west mostly south of 20 north is being monitored for development. This feature appears well organized on satellite photos, with clouds wrapping in a spiral fashion around a low pressure area near 14.5 north, 30.0 west.

The system could develop into a depression or a tropical storm by tonight. The next name on the list of Atlantic storms is Ike.

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Another tropical wave located along 48 west has a weak area of low pressure near 19 north, 48 west. This tropical wave continues to look poorly organized and is not expected to develop during the next 24-48 hours.

[Guest Close Quarterbore]

I prefer that news like this gets quoted and posted as when you look in the archives from Katrina and we have a lot of links to pages that no longer exist...

I really feal for the people on the Gulf Coast as Katrina was a Category 2 when it hit and New Orleans got hit with the weak side of Katrina. This could be the "real deal" as opposed to Katrina which was an "almost worst case" that still caused nightmares!

I can not imagine what a real Cat 4 and a direct hit would be like!

My prayers are going for those that are going to be affected.

So, please do keep posting updates as in a few years we may want to look back again like we do at Katrina.

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

AccuWeather.com - Weather Blogs - Weather News

Rain and tropical storm-force wind and rain have reached New Orleans and the Gulf Coast ahead of the mid-morning landfall of Hurricane Gustav.

According to the AccuWeather.com Hurricane Center, Gustav is expected to make landfall by mid-morning south of Houma, La., west of the Mississippi Delta.

Despite weakening slightly overnight, Gustav remains a strong Category 3 hurricane that will cause widespread destruction along the Gulf Coast and farther inland.

At 6 a.m. CDT, the eye of Gustav was about 85 miles south-southeast of New Orleans and about 20 miles south-southeast of Port Fourchon along the Louisiana coast. Maximum sustained winds are at 115 mph.

The Severe Weather Center lists the hurricane warnings in effect from the Mississippi-Alabama border to just east of High Island, Texas, including New Orleans and Lake Ponchartrain.

Tropical storm warnings are in effect from east of the Mississippi-Alabama border to the Ochlocknee River. In addition, tornado watches are in effect along the Gulf Coast from the Florida Peninsula to western Louisiana.

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outer bands of the storm reached Louisiana overnight. Early this morning, a 92-mph gust was recorded south of Venice, La. Funnel clouds were reported Sunday night near Gonzales and Livingston, located northwest of Lake Ponchartrain.

The strongest effects from Gustav will hammer areas to the east and north of the eye path. New Orleans may be brushed by the northeastern part of the eye wall and can expect hurricane-force winds.

Five to 10 inches of rain, with as much as 20 inches possible in some areas can lead to massive flooding miles from the coast. A storm surge of 10 to 20 feet is anticipated on the low-lying delta south of New Orleans.

While Gustav has the potential to devastate the Gulf Coast, the impact in New Orleans may be lessened. The strong surge of water that during Katrina moved to the south across Lake Ponchartrain overwhelmed the levee system.

Gustav is expected to produce a 10-foot storm surge in Lake Borgne, in the delta east of New Orleans; however, the massive surge of water that moved to the south across Lake Ponchartrain is not expected today.




More than 1 million Gulf Coast residents over the weekend crowded onto buses, trains and planes or drove out of New Orleans and other coastal cities. Military airlifts evacuated thousands of New Orleans residents to cities from Texas to Tennessee.

The Navy said Sunday the huge amphibious assault ship USS Bataan is at sea to be ready in case it is needed. The ship and its complement of 3,200 sailors and Marines would take about two days to get to the Gulf Coast, where it could help with search and rescue, evacuations and medical needs.

A mandatory evacuation in New Orleans has turned the Big Easy into the Big Empty. There is a dawn-to-dusk curfew in effect in New Orleans. Police Superintendent Warren Riley told reporters on Friday that anyone not on their own property after curfew will "in all likelihood be arrested."

In Texas, mandatory evacuation orders are in effect in Hardin,
The USS Bataan has been sent to sea to be ready to assist, if needed, after Hurricane Gustav reaches the Gulf Coast. US Navy photo.
Jefferson and Orange counties, including the cities of Beaumont and Port Arthur. Nearly 10,000 special-needs Texans have been evacuated from Chambers, Orange and Jefferson counties.

Gustav will have an effect on U.S. oil and natural gas production. Nearly all offshore oil and gas platforms and rigs were shut down over the weekend, along with at least nine refineries along the south Louisiana coast. Industry officials say more than half a dozen other plants in Texas and Louisiana are reducing operations.

The U.S. Minerals Management Service reported Sunday that energy companies had shut in over 96 percent of oil output and 82 percent of gas production in the Gulf, which produces a quarter of all U.S. oil production and 15 percent of its natural gas output.

Gustav is having an effect on U.S. politics. The White House announced on Sunday that President Bush will skip the Republican National Convention, which begins today in St. Paul, Minn. The President instead will head to Austin, Texas, where he will visit the Texas emergency operations center.

Presumptive GOP candidate Sen. John McCain said the tone of the convention will be muted, with Gustav now taking precedence. McCain has ordered the cancellation of all but essential opening-day activities, saying it's a time when planners must do away with party politics and act as Americans.

Campaign manager Rick Davis told Associated Press the first-night program will be cut from seven hours to two and a half. The campaign chartered a jet to fly delegates back to their homes along the Gulf Coast.


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While Gustav is on a collision course with the Gulf Coast, AccuWeather.com Hurricane Center forecasters continue to monitor Tropical Storm Hanna.

At 5:00 a.m. EDT, Hanna remained nearly stationary north of the Caicos Islands, about 90 miles north-northeast of the southeastern Bahamas.

A tropical storm warning is in effect for the central and southeastern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. Tropical storm-force winds estimated near 50 mph extend outward up to 140 miles from the center.

Hanna continues to interact with an area of low pressure to its west, which will keep it disorganized and slow intensification through today. While rapid strengthening is unlikely, Hanna could reach hurricane strength by midweek as it moves slowly to the west then northwest.

Its effects could initially be felt along the Southeast coast of the United States by Friday.

[Jya-Ning Silver Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close Jya-Ning]

It reduced to cat 2 now

Jya-Ning

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

Now a Cat 1 One Million without power and grateful

Hurricane Gustav slams La.; 1M without power By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN and MARY FOSTER, Associated Press Writers
3 minutes ago

Hurricane Gustav slams La.; 1M without power - Yahoo! News

NEW ORLEANS - Hurricane Gustav slammed into the heart of Louisiana's fishing and oil industry with 110 mph winds Monday, delivering only a glancing blow to New Orleans that raised hopes the city would escape the kind of catastrophic flooding brought by Katrina three years ago.


That did not mean the state survived the storm without damage. A levee in the southeast part of the state was on the verge of collapse, and officials scrambled to fortify it. Roofs were torn from homes, trees toppled and roads flooded. More than 1 million homes were without power.

The nearly 2 million people who left coastal Louisiana on a mandatory evacuation order watched TV coverage from shelters and hotel rooms hundreds of miles away, many of them wondering what kind of damage they would find when they were allowed to come back home.

Keith Cologne of Chauvin, La., looked dejected after talking by telephone to a friend who didn't evacuate. "They said it's bad, real bad. There are roofs lying all over. It's all gone," said Cologne, staying at a hotel in Orange Beach, Ala.

But the biggest fear — that the levees surrounding the saucer-shaped city of New Orleans would break and flood all over again — hadn't been realized. Wind-driven water sloshed over the top of the Industrial Canal's floodwall, but city officials and the Army Corps of Engineers said they expected the levees, still only partially rebuilt after Katrina, would hold.

Flood protections along the canal broke with disastrous effect during Katrina, submerging St. Bernard Parish and the Lower Ninth Ward.

"We are seeing some overtopping waves," said Col. Jeff Bedey, commander of the Corps' hurricane protection office. "We are cautiously optimistic and confident that we won't see catastrophic wall failure."

In the Upper Ninth Ward, about half the streets closest to the canal were flooded with ankle- to knee-deep water as the road dipped and rose. Of more immediate concern to authorities were two small vessels that broke loose from their moorings in the canal and were resting against the Florida Street wharf.

By mid afternoon Monday, the rain had stopped in the French Quarter, the highest point in the city. The wind was breezy but not fierce, and some of the approximately 10,000 people who chose to defy warnings and stay behind began to emerge. But knowing that the levees surrounding the city could still be pressured by rising waters, no one was celebrating just yet.

"I don't think we're out of the woods. We still have to worry about the water," said Gerald Boulmay, 61, a St. Louis Hotel worker and lifelong New Orleans resident.

One community in southeast Louisiana was fearful their levee wouldn't hold. As many as 300 homes in Plaquemines Parish were threatened, and the parish president called a television station to issue an urgent plea to any residents who were left to flee to the Mississippi River, where officials would evacuate them.

"It's overtopping. There's a possibility it's going to be compromised," said Phil Truxillo, a Plaquemines emergency official.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Gustav hit around 9:30 a.m. near Cocodrie (pronounced ko-ko-DREE), a low-lying community in Louisiana's Cajun country 72 miles southwest of New Orleans, as a Category 2 storm on a scale of 1 to 5. The storm weakened to a Category 1 later in the afternoon. Forecasters feared the storm would arrive as a devastating Category 4.

As of noon, the extent of the damage in Cajun country was not immediately clear. State officials said they had still not reached anyone at Port Fourchon, a vital hub for the energy industry where huge amounts of oil and gas are piped inland to refineries. The eye of Gustav passed about 20 miles from the port and there were fears the damage there could be extensive.

The storm could prove devastating to the region of fishing villages and oil-and-gas towns. For most of the past half century, the bayou communities have watched their land disappear at one of the highest rates of erosion in the world. A combination of factors — oil drilling, hurricanes, levees, dams — have destroyed the swamps and left the area with virtually no natural buffer against storms.

Damage to refineries and drilling platforms could cause gasoline prices at the pump to spike. The Gulf Coast is home to nearly half the nation's refining capacity, while offshore the Gulf accounts for about 25 percent of domestic oil production and 15 percent of natural gas output. But oil prices actually tumbled to $111 a barrel as the storm weakened.

The nation was nervously watching to see how New Orleans would deal with Gustav almost exactly three years after Katrina flooded 80 percent of the city and killed roughly 1,600 people. Federal, state and local officials took a never-again stance after Katrina and set to work planning and upgrading flood defenses in the below-sea-level city.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency had cartons of food, water, blankets and other supplies to sustain 1 million people for three days ready to be distributed Monday — a contrast to Katrina, when thousands waited for rescue in a hot Superdome.

"With Katrina they didn't come and rescue us until the next day," said LaTriste Washington, 32, who stayed in her home during the 2005 hurricane and later was rescued by boat. She was in a shelter in Birmingham, Ala., Monday. "This time they were ready and had buses lined up for us to leave New Orleans."

President Bush, who skipped the Republican convention to monitor the storm from Texas, applauded the preparation and response efforts.

"The coordination on this storm is a lot better than on — than during Katrina," Bush said noting how the governors of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas had been working in concert. "It was clearly a spirit of sharing assets, of listening to somebody's problems and saying, `How can we best address them?'"

Meanwhile, Republicans hurried to turn the opening day of the convention into a fundraising drive for hurricane victims. Presidential candidate John McCain's wife and first lady Laura Bush were expected to address the shortened session and appeal for Gulf Coast help.

Both Republicans meeting in St. Paul and the campaign of Democratic nominee Barack Obama asked supporters to send a text message to a five-digit code that would make a donation to the Red Cross to help victims of the hurricane.

For all their apparent similarities, Hurricanes Gustav and Katrina were different in one critical respect: Katrina smashed the Gulf Coast with an epic storm surge that topped 27 feet, a far higher wall of water than Gustav hauled ashore.

Katrina was a bigger storm when it came ashore in August 2005 as a Category 3 storm and it made a direct hit on the Louisiana-Mississippi line. Gustav skirted along Louisiana's shoreline at "a more gentle angle," said National Weather Service storm surge specialist Will Shaffer.

Nagin's emergency preparedness director, Lt. Col. Jerry Sneed, said residents might be allowed to return 24 hours after the tropical storm-force winds die down.

Other evacuated areas along the coast may be away from home for longer, said National Hurricane Center director Bill Read. The hurricane will likely slow down as it heads into Texas and possibly Arkansas, and those areas could then get 20 inches of rainfall.

Only one storm-related death, a woman killed in a car wreck driving from Baton Rouge to New Orleans, was reported in Louisiana. Before arriving in the U.S., Gustav was blamed for at least 94 deaths in the Caribbean.

In Mississippi, officials said a 15-foot storm surge flooded homes and inundated the only highways to coastal towns devastated by Katrina. Officials said at least three people near the Jordan River had to be rescued from the floodwaters. Elsewhere in the state, an abandoned building in Gulfport collapsed and a few homes in Biloxi were flooded.

The ground floor of the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino on Biloxi's casino row was flooded during the storm surge from Gustav. Hurricane Katrina smashed the casino three years ago shortly before it was to open.

Bobby Tuber, the casino's facility-grounds manager, said the storm put about 30 inches of water in the building but the casino itself, located on an upper level, and was not damaged.

"We're fine. We'll come out all well," Tuber said as he and others used a pump and a large hose to remove the water.

Gustav was the seventh named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season. The eighth grew into Hurricane Hanna Monday, followed quickly by the formation of Tropical Storm Ike a few hours later. Forecasters said it could come ashore in Georgia and South Carolina late in the week.