US News
Hurricane Gustav loses punch, strafes Louisiana (3rd Lead)
Sep 1, 2008, 14:19 GMT
Palms trees blows in the wind as Hurricane Gustav makes landfall in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA on 01 September 2008. EPA/DAN ANDERSON
Washington - Hurricane Gustav bore down on the deserted city of New Orleans on Monday with lessened force as heavy winds and rain from the outer reaches of the cyclone strafed the Louisiana coastline.
Gustav's winds dropped to 110 kilometres per hour, as the National Hurricane Center reduced it to a category 2 storm on the 1-to-5 Saffir-Simpson scale. The powerful storm sent sea levels rising and knocked out electricity in parts of New Orleans, CNN reported.
The storm was expected to make landfall in the coming hours.
Gustav, which at one point was a category 4, has already cut a path of destruction and killed 80 across the Caribbean before reaching its latest target area early Monday.
With memories of the 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster that killed 1,800 still fresh, federal, state and local officials moved quickly to evacuate nearly 2 million residents along the coast from Alabama to Texas.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal estimated that 95 per cent of those threatened in Louisiana had headed northwards to shelters, hotels and friends as far away as Tennessee and Oklahoma.
Only around 10,000 people were still in the city, Jindal quoted the New Orleans police chief as saying.
Traffic was bumper to bumper on Sunday as all highway lanes were turned north, making it impossible to drive south into the storm's target area.
Even before Gustav hit, there were three deaths of critical care patients who were being evacuated from more than two dozen hospitals in Louisiana.
Jindal said one of those who died had a 'do not resuscitate' order that ailing or elderly patients often put into their medical charts.
In St Paul, Minnesota, in the far-away northern tier of the country, the storm took a political, if not physical, toll.
Republicans meeting to nominate their presidential candidate, Senator John McCain, cancelled the political speeches planned for the convention opening on Monday. McCain felt that would be inappropriate as the nation watched the approaching natural disaster.
US President George W Bush, who got black marks for his administration's slow response to Katrina in 2005, had already cancelled his appearance in St Paul, saying he needed to go to Texas Monday where rescue and recovery operations were headquartered.
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Older Talkback
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These natural catastrophes are terrible and poor old USA gets more than it`s share of just about everything Mother Nature can inflict.
Whatever damage to property, landscapes, injuries or even death to people and wildlife, NOBODY outside America cares. Yet when these things happen in other countries, the first offer of aid comes from the US !
A very tiny bright side is that this Hurricane seems to have dominated the national news and wiped out that sickening fiasco between McCain, Obama, his awful wife and that unbelievable Moose faced Alaskan residue from some ancient beauty contest.
This makes the air fresher for a few days, then tragedy over, it will all be back to bore us all out of our skulls with a vengeance.
For God`s sake, let them stick any dummy they like in the White House and let us forget this idiotic lunacy between people better suited in a Kindergarten than showing their immature ignorance in public.
season is just starting; Gustav begins with ''G'' and every year they just about go through the alphabet so don't let your guard down just yet.
This is what the future holds for New Orleans:
Year after year, U.S. citizens will watch as New Orleans residence drive north and then south. Everyone will be speculating which big one will destroy the city.
In an earthquake, people can act rationally and responsibly: Buy single story wood framed houses, put shear walls into concrete buildings, replace older buildings with newer earthquake proof/resistant designs.
But, in New Orleans as the delta ecosystem becomes more tenuous and global warming increases the mean water level those few critical millimeters, and the entire city sinks further, each year will become worse than the previous year. New Orleans will become the new spectator sport, and the residence the gladiators. Cheers from the virtual stadium, the T.V., will prod the gladiators to participate until finally they are wiped out. But, with the end of one season comes a new season, a new cast and new managing directors who will put on a new show, that is: until the ratings fall. Then the show will be cancelled the cast shall disband and the nation shall move onto the next obscene display of lack of reasonableness. Perhaps a renewed effort to bring peace to the middle east through the use of violence (what a juxtaposition), gay bashing, or since the deficit is going to break the 10 trillion decimal maybe people will rush to welfare to get it to the next decimal: 100 trillion.
Or, perhaps reasonableness shall prevail, but I do not detect the possibility even though I hold out for it every day.
Whatever you can say good or bad about Ms. Palin - she is a beautiful woman, not a moose-faced, Alaskan residue! It's remarks and thinking like that, that lose all credibility! If people can't come up with something better to debate than a person's looks, they are just showing stupidity! Regardless of anyone's political leanings, these candidates and their wives/husband should be respected as human beings with a desire to serve this country.
a hottie with a hottie bottie.
Oh dear Lance, I`m beginning to rate you on a par with histories great philosophers like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, that tiny Texas turd George Bush Jr. and of course the greatest of them all - SP4.
Why do we have inexperienced bums around like Shoeshine Muslim Obama, legacies from a bygone age - John McCain, the songbird of Hanoi, or that Moose-faced relic from an ancient Alaskan beauty contest Whatshername, I`ve forgotten already.
Another award winning scroll - well done Oh Master. I reckon you`ve got SP4 by the short and curlies, he`s probably puffing his crack and swigging his Meths down this very minute, trying to combat your superior wisdom. He ain't got a chance in hell.
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SP4: aw, too bad...Sep 1st, 2008 - 15:14:15
...a weak storm and a strong Governor took the perfect opportunity away...again...
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