Orkaan Gustav (cat.3) op ramkoers met Louisiana

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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Tropical Storm Gustav was losing steam early Wednesday as it moved through the Caribbean a day after hitting Haiti as a hurricane.

But the storm could regain hurricane strength later in the day or on Thursday once it clears Haiti, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

As of 2 a.m. EDT Wednesday, Gustav's maximum sustained winds had decreased to 60 mph with higher gusts. The storm was centered about 80 miles west of Port-au-Prince and moving toward the west-northwest near 5 mph.

As a hurricane, Gustav caused a killer landslide and dumped torrential rains on southern Haiti on Tuesday before weakening to a tropical storm.

Rising water threatened Haiti's crops amid protests over high food prices, and oil prices rose on fears the storm could batter oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

The storm lingered into the night over Haiti's poor, deforested southern peninsula, and water levels were rising in banana, bean and vegetable fields. One man was killed in a landslide in the mountain town of Benet, civil protection director Marie Alta Jean-Baptiste told Radio Metropole.

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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — As Tropical Storm Gustav moves away from Haiti, the Louisiana and Texas coasts are preparing for a date with a possible Category 2 or 3 hurricane as the storm could regain strength later in the day or on Thursday.

The threat of a hurricane slamming the Gulf Coast comes as the region nears the anniversary of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

In a news conference in Baton Rouge, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said he could declare a state of emergency by Thursday and warned residents to be prepared.

"Be ready, now's the time to review your plans," Jindal said. "This is a serious storm."

Gustav stalled in the Caribbean early Wednesday a day after hitting Haiti as a hurricane.

As of 5 a.m. EDT Wednesday, Gustav's maximum sustained winds were near 60 mph with higher gusts. The storm was centered about 80 miles west of Port-au-Prince. The storm had not moved much during the last few hours, the hurricane center said. But it was expected to continue moving toward the west-northwest.

Jamaica issued a tropical storm warning Wednesday and also remained under a hurricane watch along with the Cayman Islands. A watch means hurricane conditions are possible within 36 hours.

A hurricane warning was in effect for parts of Cuba including the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay. A warning means hurricane conditions are expected within 24 hours.

As a hurricane, Gustav caused a killer landslide and dumped torrential rains on southern Haiti on Tuesday before weakening to a tropical storm.

Rising water threatened Haiti's crops amid protests over high food prices, and oil prices rose on fears the storm could batter oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

The storm lingered into the night over Haiti's poor, deforested southern peninsula, and water levels were rising in banana, bean and vegetable fields. One man was killed in a landslide in the mountain town of Benet, civil protection director Marie Alta Jean-Baptiste told Radio Metropole.

Cars pushed through standing water in the streets of Port-au-Prince, as fallen trees and landslides blocked a major road out of the capital.

Hundreds of people in coastal Les Cayes ignored government warnings to seek shelter, instead throwing rocks to protest the high cost of living in the Western Hemisphere's poorest country. Witnesses said U.N. peacekeepers used tear gas to disperse the crowd.

Haiti is a tinderbox because of soaring food prices, which in April led to deadly protests and the ouster of the nation's prime minister. It was difficult to ascertain the extent of the damage from the hurricane to the nation's crops on Tuesday because of Haiti's poor infrastructure and faulty communications.

"If the rain continues, we'll be flooded," U.N. food consultant Jean Gardy said Tuesday from the southeastern town of Marigot.

Forecasters said Gustav could become a Category 2 hurricane with winds topping 96 mph Thursday as it moves between Cuba and Jamaica.

After Haiti, a strengthening Gustav was projected to sideswipe Cuba's southern coastline all week before entering the central gulf on Sunday.

Forecasters were reluctant to predict the storm's path beyond the weekend.

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Op donderdag 28 augustus 2008 08:56 schreef zkr623 het volgende:
knip

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Tropische storm Gustav eist tientallen levens

PORT-AU-PRINCE/SANTO DOMINGO/NEW ORLEANS - De tropische storm Gustav die door het Caribisch gebied raast, heeft op Hispaniola aan ten minste 23 mensen het leven gekost.

In Haïti vielen zeker vijftien doden, in de Dominicaanse Republiek zeker acht, onder wie zeker zes kinderen, aldus de plaatselijke autoriteiten woensdag (plaatselijke tijd). Duizenden inwoners van Hispaniola zijn geëvacueerd.

Gustav is op weg naar Cuba en lijkt in kracht toe te nemen en via de olievelden in de Golf van Mexico af te stevenen op de Amerikaanse stad New Orleans. De gouverneur van de staat Louisiana heeft al de noodtoestand afgekondigd en de evacuatie van kustgebieden gelast.

New Orleans werd in 2005 verwoest door de orkaan Katrina. Daardoor kwamen zo'n 1500 mensen om het leven.

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NEW ORLEANS — On the eve of Hurricane Katrina's third anniversary, a nervous New Orleans watched Wednesday as another storm threatened to test everything the city has rebuilt, and officials made preliminary plans to evacuate people, pets and hospitals in an attempt to avoid Katrina-style chaos.

Forecasters warned that Gustav could grow into a dangerous Category 3 hurricane in the next several days and hit somewhere along a swath of the Gulf Coast from the Florida Panhandle to Texas — with New Orleans smack in the middle.

"I'm panicking," said Evelyn Fuselier of Chalmette, whose home was submerged in 14 feet of floodwater when Katrina hit. Fuselier said she has been back in her home one year this month, and called watching Gustav swirl toward the Gulf of Mexico indescribable. "'Is my house going to flood again?' ... 'Am I going to have to go through all this again?,"' she asked.

Taking no chances, city officials began preliminary planning to evacuate and lock down the city in hopes of avoiding the catastrophe that followed the 2005 storm. Mayor Ray Nagin planned to leave the Democratic National Convention in Denver to return home for the preparations, as did U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu. Gov. Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency to lay the groundwork for federal assistance, and put 3,000 National Guard troops on standby.

a Category 3 or stronger hurricane comes within 60 hours of the city, New Orleans plans to institute a mandatory evacuation order. Unlike Katrina, there will be no massive shelter, a plan designed to encourage residents to leave. Instead, the state has arranged for buses and trains to take people to safety.

It was unclear what would happen to stragglers. Jerry Sneed, the city's emergency preparedness director, said officials are ready to move about 30,000 people. Nearly 8,000 people had signed up for transportation

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New Orleans bereidt evacuatie voor

NEW ORLEANS - Kort voor de derde verjaardag van de ramp die de orkaan Katrina 29 augustus 2005 over New Orleans en de delta van de Mississippi uitstortte, overweegt New Orleans opnieuw de stad te evacueren.

De hevige tropische storm Gustav dreigt uit te groeien tot een wervelstorm en kan begin komende week over de nog steeds niet herstelde stad trekken.

De burgemeester van New Orleans, Ray Nagin, heeft de Democratische Partijconventie in Denver nog voor Obama's slotspeech verlaten om zijn stad op de wervelstorm voor te bereiden

Werkzaamheden

De werkzaamheden om de stad te beschermen tegen overstromingen, zijn nog lang niet af. Van de vijftien miljard dollar die ervoor is uitgetrokken, is nog maar voor twee miljard aan werk uitgevoerd, meldde donderdag de website van de plaatselijke krant The Times-Picayne.

"Op veel plaatsen kan er vrijwel niets worden gedaan om dammen en waterkeringen weerstand te laten bieden tegen een wervelstorm."

De krant geeft als voorbeeld het gebied in het oosten van New Orleans op de linkeroever van de rivier de Mississippi. Daar zijn de waterkeringsplannen ter waarde van bijna 700 miljoen dollar voornamelijk nog in een papieren fase.

Zandzakken

Woensdag en donderdag zijn er weer zandzakken op dammen gegooid. De gouverneur van Lousiana, Bobby Jindal, heeft drieduizend man van de Nationale Garde in paraatheid gebracht en de ontruiming van kustgebieden bevolen.

Media berichtten dat de plaatselijke overheden geen risico's willen lopen. Ze zijn al met de uitwerking van evacuatieplannen begonnen.

Opvang

De eerste 30.000 bewoners zouden vrijdag al kunnen vertrekken. De overheid wil geen chaotische opvang van bewoners zoals in 2005 in bijvoorbeeld een stadion, maar een ordelijk en geleidelijk vertrek met treinen of bussen.

Wanneer Gustav in de wervelstormcategorie 3 of meer belandt (windsnelheden vanaf 177 kilometer per uur), wordt de verplichte evacuatie afgekondigd.

Katrina

De orkaan Katrina richtte drie jaar geleden kolossale schade aan in Louisiana, Mississippi en Alabama. Dammen in New Orleans braken en ongeveer 80 procent van de stad kwam onder water te staan. Meer dan 1575 mensen verloren in de staat Louisiana het leven door deze wervelstorm.

De tropische storm Gustav heeft tot dusverre in Haïti en de Dominicaanse Republiek al aan meer dan twintig mensen het leven gekost.

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GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands — Gustav swelled to a Category 2 hurricane early Saturday with winds near 100 mph after plowing through the Cayman Islands toward Cuba, gathering strength on a journey that could take it to the U.S. Gulf Coast as a fearsome Category 3 storm three years after Hurricane Katrina.

Gustav, which killed 71 people in the Caribbean, hit the Caymans Friday with fierce winds that tore down trees and power lines. It was expected to cross Cuba's cigar country Saturday and head into the Gulf of Mexico by Sunday

Gustav first struck Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, the smaller easternmost "Sister Islands" in the chain. Storm surge and heavy rains flooded the streets.

More than 1,100 people were in government shelters in the three islands as high waves and heavy winds battered the chain, the National Emergency Operations Center said in a statement. No injuries were reported.

"We're just trying to wait it out," said Juliana O'Connor-Connolly, who represents the islands in the Cayman legislature, by cell phone from the kitchen of her farm on Cayman Brac.

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Op zaterdag 30 augustus 2008 21:11 schreef HansAEX het volgende:
Katrina was CAT 3 bij 'landfall' als ik me niet vergis

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Hurricane Gustav strengthened to a dangerous Category 4 storm Saturday, prompting officials to plan a special advisory and some Gulf Coast residents to leave town ahead of mandatory evacuations.

Data from an Air Force reconnaissance aircraft indicated that Gustav's maximum winds have increased to close to 145 mph, making the already-deadly storm an extremely hazardous Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale.

The advisory was issued about 2 p.m. EDT to modify an earlier warning.

Gustav could strengthen even further to a Category 5 hurricane just before or shortly after it passes over Cuba into the Gulf of Mexico, according to the National Hurricane Center.

New Orleans residents, with the memory of devastating Hurricane Katrina still fresh in their minds, didn't waste time getting out of the city on Saturday.
Lines of people waiting for buses to take them out of the Big Easy grew longer and traffic grew heavier on main highways as Hurricane Gustav strengthened into a dangerous storm on track for the Gulf Coast.

"I'm getting out of here. I can't take another hurricane," said Ramona Summers, 59, whose house flooded during Katrina. She hurried to help friends gather their belongings. Her car was already packed for Gonzales, nearly 60 miles away to the west of New Orleans.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said a mandatory evacuation hadn't yet been issued, but could come later in the day to begin Sunday morning.

He said he was confident the levees wouldn't fail the way they did during Katrina if Gustav hits New Orleans.

"We have invested a significant amount of money in levee protection, so I’m not anticipating the same type of levee flooding we had with Katrina," Nagin told reporters Saturday. He said he was expecting street flooding, and city officials would be working through the night in preparation for the monster storm.

As for whether or not New Orleans could survive another devastating hurricane, Nagin said it would be difficult.

"Emotionally can we handle it? I think there's a lot of fragileness in the city," he said. "It’s going to be a tough one, but New Orleanians are very resilient."

A line well over a mile long stretched in six loops through the parking lot at Union Station Terminal in New Orleans. Under a blazing sun, many led children or pushed strollers with one hand and pulled luggage with the other. Volunteers handed out bottled water, and medics were nearby in case people became heatsick.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was already working feverishly to avoid the kind of problems that surfaced in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. FEMA said it expects a "huge number" of Gulf Coast residents will be told to leave the region this weekend.

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Op zaterdag 30 augustus 2008 21:15 schreef Drugshond het volgende:

[..]

Ja ja.... nu zou ik pas begonnen zijn met een separaat topic.
Al je voorspellingen komen overigens wel uit. Vraag ff in [NWS] of ze een sticky-topic aanmaken.