The National Hurricane Center's latest advisory pins Hurricane Gustav at Category 3 intensity, with winds near 115 miles per hour/185 km/hr. It's advancing on the northern Gulf Coast at around 17 mph/27 km/hr, with tropical storm winds now hitting land. The NHC is also forecasting a huge and dangerous storm surge of 18-25 feet. Mississippi coast cities are looking at a one in five chance of hurricane-strength winds and nearly 100 percent chance of tropical storm force winds.
Painfully aware of the failings that led to that horrific suffering and more than 1,600 deaths, this time officials moved beyond merely insisting tourists and residents leave south Louisiana. They threatened arrest, loaded thousands onto buses and warned that anyone who remained behind would not be rescued.
This evening, Louisiana Gov. Jindal estimated there were perhaps ten thousand people left in the city.
Parts of coastal Texas have been evacuated as well; a notice up on the Gustav Information Center (launched by Andy Carvin and in search of volunteers to help set up resources, update and verify content, and more) cautions Louisiana evacuees to avoid the area surrounding Beaumont, Texas, which is now in Gustav's west--trending path.
As citizens of New Orleans and other points on the Gulf Coast attempt to learn from Hurricane Katrina by getting out of Gustav's way, GOP presidential candidate John McCain made ready to visit the scene of impending disaster, and the Republican Party has sharply curtailed its planned convention activities for Monday. The New York Times reports,
On the day Hurricane Katrina made landfall three years ago, President Bush helped Senator John McCain celebrate his birthday with a cake that melted on a blazing hot airport tarmac, just as the president's approval ratings would in the weeks to come.
This time around, the party's off. Or at least it is for Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain, who on Sunday sought to focus attention on efforts to prepare for Hurricane Gustav at the expense of carefully laid plans for this week's Republican National Convention.
In some ways, it was a nightmare moment for Republicans. The hurricane's approach put front and center once more some of the worst failings of the Bush presidency at the very moment Mr. McCain was to begin presenting a vision of the post-Bush Republican Party to the nation.
With television tracking the storm's approach and showing images of an emptying New Orleans, it was hard for voters to escape reminders of how Mr. Bush had emerged from Hurricane Katrina severely wounded by judgments of incompetence and lack of empathy....more
Image: Hurricane Gustav. Credit: NASA/JPL
