Hurricane Gustav 2008 - General Information

This page is a resource for anyone looking for information about the preparations for, and the impact of, Hurricane Gustav.

Those interested in volunteering should click on the “Information for Amateur Volunteers” link above.

Gustav-related inquiries to ARRL Headquarters: gustav@arrl.org

Latest Gustav position: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_at2.shtml?5day#contents

Latest Gustav-related Amateur Radio news: www.arrl.org/

Media inquiries: apitts@arrl.org

Status of individuals affected by the storm: American Red Cross “Safe and Well” Web site -- www.safeandwell.org. Individuals and families are requested to register on the site or by calling 1-800-RED-CROSS before evacuating.

City of New Orleans Emergency Preparedness: http://www.cityofno.com/

Updated list of evacuations by parish: www.emergency.louisiana.gov/Releases/Evacuations.html.

National Hurricane Center:

www.wx4nhc.org and www.wx4nhc.org/w4ehw-contact.html

Online form for submitting Hurricane Reports (non-emergency): www.wx4nhc.org/WX-form1.html

National and international communications on 14.325 MHz (Hurricane Watch Net HF frequency).

Amateur Radio VoIP using EchoLink Conference "WX-Talk" and on IRLP (linked VHF/UHF Repeater system) using IRLP Node 9219.

Hurricane Watch Net: www.hwn.org/

VoIP Hurricane Net: www.voipwx.net

International Radio Emergency Support Coalition: www.iresc.org

Southern Baptist Disaster Relief: http://www.namb.net/site/c.9qKILUOzEpH/b.224451/

MSNBC.com

HAVANA - Cubans returned from shelters to find flooded homes and washed-out roads Sunday, but no deaths were reported after a monstrous Hurricane Gustav roared across the island and into the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico.

Gustav hit the Isla de la Juventud south of the Cuban mainland with screaming 140 mph winds that toppled telephone poles and fruit trees, shattered windows and leveled some homes.

Authorities evacuated 250,000 residents nationwide. In Pinar del Rio, the western tobacco-producing region, highways were blocked by fallen trees and downed power lines, and all public transportation ground to a halt.

Officials measured gusts of 212 mph in the western town of Paso Real del San Diego — a new national record for maximum wind speed in a country often hit by major hurricanes, said Miguel Angel Hernandez of the Cuban Institute of Meteorology.

Like a bomb's 'blast wave'
A Cuban television reporter on the Isla de la Juventud said the storm had felt like "the blast wave from a bomb."

"Buildings without windows, without doors," he said. "Few trees remain standing."

Cuban Civil defense chief Ana Isa Delgado said there were "many people injured" on the Isla de la Juventud, an island of 87,000 people whose name means Isle of Youth. Nearly all of its roads were washed out, and some regions were heavily flooded.

"It's been very difficult here," she said on state television.

Gustav earlier killed 94 people by triggering floods and landslides in Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. Jamaica on Sunday raised Gustav’s death toll there to 10 from seven, and Haiti upped its count from 66 to 76.

But in Cuba, which has a strong reputation for evacuating ahead of hurricanes, none of the reported injuries were life-threatening.

Knee-deep water in places
In the Cuban fishing town of Batabano, 31 miles south of Havana, evacuees with children and dogs in tow returned to their pastel-colored, wooden homes to find many surrounded by knee-deep water.

"My house is full of water," said Aldo Tomas, 43, pulling palm branches from his living room. "But we expected more. We expected worse."

In the town of Palacios, residents could be seen crying over the foundations of their homes or wandering around aimlessly.

“High tension towers were twisted and down, roofs blown off entire towns, schools destroyed and in Palacios even the baseball stadium’s walls were gone,” Reuters TV cameraman Heriberto Rodriguez said.

State television showed pictures of destroyed homes, submerged factories and boats lifted from their moorings and left in city streets.

The 800,000 residents of Pinar del Rio and the Isle of Youth remained without power on Sunday, as did many of the more than three million residents of adjoining Havana province and the capital.

Where Gustav’s eye hit nothing stood. Up to 100 miles to the east in Matanza, wind gusts downed trees and damaged buildings, telephone and electricity lines.

The city of Havana’s streets were littered with branches, shrubs, trees and light poles.

Wind and rains damaged banana plantations and other crops in Havana province, the capital’s bread basket.

Damage to recently harvested tobacco in Pinar del Rio was still being tallied.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26486029/

MSNBC.com

NEW ORLEANS - With a historic evacuation of nearly 2 million people from the Louisiana coast complete, gun-toting police and National Guardsmen stood watch as rain started to fall on this city's empty streets Sunday night — and even presidential politics took a back seat as the nation waited to see if Hurricane Gustav would be another Katrina.

The storm was set to crash ashore late Monday morning with frightful force, testing the three years of planning and rebuilding that followed Katrina's devastating blow to the Gulf Coast. The storm has already killed at least 94 people on its path through the Caribbean.

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.

"Looters will go directly to jail. You will not get a pass this time," Mayor Ray Nagin said. "You will not have a temporary stay in the city. You will go directly to the Big House."

Col. Mike Edmondson, state police commander, said he believed that 90 percent of the population had fled the Louisiana coast. The exodus of 1.9 million people is the largest evacuation in state history, and thousands more had left from Mississippi, Alabama and flood-prone southeast Texas.

Late Sunday, Gov. Bobby Jindal issued one last plea to the roughly 100,000 people still left on the coast: "If you've not evacuated, please do so. There are still a few hours left."

Louisiana and Mississippi temporarily changed traffic flow so all highway lanes led away from the coast, and cars were packed bumper-to-bumper. Stores and restaurants shut down, hotels closed and windows were boarded up. Some who planned to stay changed their mind at the last second, not willing to risk the worst.

"I was trying to get situated at home. I was trying to get things so it would be halfway safe," said 46-year-old painter Jerry Williams, who showed up at the city's Union Station to catch one of the last buses out of town. "You're torn. Do you leave it and worry about it, or do you stay and worry about living?"

There were frightening comparisons between Gustav and Katrina, which flooded 80 percent of New Orleans. Gustav was forecast to bring with it a storm surge of up to 14 feet, but there was no doubt the storm posed a major threat to a partially rebuilt New Orleans and the flood-prone coasts of Louisiana and southeast Texas.

‘Dirty’ side of storm poised to hit New Orleans
Forecasters said Gustav was moving faster than expected as it marched toward the coast with top sustained winds of around 115 mph. At 8 p.m. EDT Sunday, the National Hurricane Center said Gustav was a Category 3 storm centered about 175 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River and moving northwest near 17 mph. The National Hurricane Center also warned that Gustav could spawn tornadoes along the coast.

Rain started falling in New Orleans before sunset, and tropical storm force winds reached the southeastern tip of the state. The first hurricane force winds were due to arrive after midnight and reach Category 3 force — from 111 to 130 mph — at the point where Gustav's center makes landfall west of the city.

New Orleans will likely be on the "dirty" side of the storm — where rainfall is heaviest and tornadoes are possible. But if the city is east of where Gustav's eye crosses, the storm surge would be lower than if the city took a direct hit, reducing the chances of flooding. If forecasts hold, the city would experience lower winds and a storm surge of only 4 to 6 feet, compared to a storm surge of 10 to 14 feet at the site of landfall, said Corey Walton, a hurricane support meteorologist with the National Hurricane Center.

By comparison, Katrina brought a storm surge of 25 feet.

Surge models suggest large areas of southeast Louisiana, including parts of the greater New Orleans area, could be flooded by several feet of water. But Gustav appears most likely to overwhelm the levees west of the city that have for decades been underfunded and neglected and are years from an update.

Against all warnings, some gambled and decided to face the storm's wrath. On an otherwise deserted commercial block of downtown Lafayette, about 135 miles west of the city, Tim Schooler removed the awnings from his photography studio. He thought about evacuating Sunday before deciding he was better off riding out the storm at home with his wife, Nona.

"There's really no place to go. All the hotels are booked up to Little Rock and beyond," he said. "We're just hoping for the best."

Gustav a political storm, too
Mindful of the potential for disaster, the Republican Party scaled back its normally jubilant convention — set to kickoff as Gustav crashed ashore. President Bush said he would skip the convention altogether, and Sen. John McCain visited Jackson, Miss., on Sunday as his campaign rewrote the script for the convention to emphasize a commitment to helping people.

The nation's economic attention was focused on Gustav's effect on refineries and offshore petroleum production rigs. The combination of prolonged production interruptions, such as occurred when Katrina and Rita damaged the Gulf infrastructure, could trigger rising prices.

Billions of dollars were at stake in other wide-ranging economic sectors, including sugar harvesting, the shipping business and tourism. The Mississippi Gaming Commission ordered a dozen casinos to close.

The final train out of New Orleans left with fewer than 100 people on board, while the one of the last buses to make the rounds of the city pulled into Union Station empty. Police made final rounds around 7 p.m. Every officer in the department was on duty, and 1,200 on street were joined by 1,500 National Guardsmen.

The only sign of life on St. Bernard Avenue — a four-lane artery through the partially rebuilt Gentilly neighborhood that flooded during Katrina — was a brown and black rooster meandering along the street.

"When the 911 calls start coming in, we'll know how many people are left in town," said police superintendent Warren Riley.

Haunted by Katrina
Even as they pressed to complete the evacuation, officials insisted there would be no repeat of the inept response to Katrina's wrath. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said search and rescue will be the top priority once Gustav passes — high-water vehicles, helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, Coast Guard cutters and a Navy vessel that is essentially a floating emergency room are posted around the strike zone.

West of New Orleans in Houma, he wished passengers well as stragglers boarded buses for Shreveport and Dallas.

"It's going to be hot on some of the buses. It's going to be a long trip," Chertoff said. "So it's not going to be pleasant, but it's a lot better than sitting in the Superdome and it's a lot better than sitting in your house."

Melissa Lee, who lives in Pearl River, a town near the boundary of Mississippi and Louisiana, was driving away to Florida Sunday. Before she left, she heard neighbors chopping down trees with chain saws, trying to ensure the tall pines that surrounded their homes wouldn't come crashing down.

"I sent my son out with a camera and said, Go take pictures of our backyard. Because it's going to look different when we get back.'"

Forecasters said Gustav was just short of Category 5 strength when it made landfall Saturday on mainland Cuba near the community of Los Palacios in Pinar del Rio — a region that produces much of the tobacco used to make the nation's famed cigars.

At least 300,000 Cubans were evacuated from Gustav's path as screaming 140 mph winds toppled telephone poles and fruit trees, shattered windows and tore off the tin roofs of homes. No deaths, however, were reported there.

Cuban civil defense chief Ana Isla said there were "many people injured" on Isla de la Juventud, an island of 87,000 people south of the mainland. She said nearly all the island's roads were washed out and some regions were heavily flooded.

"It's been very difficult here," she said on state television.

Gun sales strong
Back in New Orleans, Katrina's legacy of looting also led to a jump in gun sales.

Mike Mayer, owner of Jefferson Indoor Range and Gun Outlet in suburban Metairie, said sales of guns and ammunition were up. "My business doubled," he said. "People are afraid of coming back after the storm. ... They want some protection when they walk back in."

Some locals planned to ride out the storm.

Stephen Sonnier left for Katrina, but not this time. "I'll never leave again. Just being away, worrying about it last time? I'd have rather been here," Sonnier said as he helped a friend fasten metal hurricane panels over the window of his reconstructed flower shop.

Sonnier had just marked the third anniversary of Katrina on Friday by placing flowers on a makeshift memorial to a woman named Vera who was struck by a car after the storm. Her body lay unattended for days before neighbors built a makeshift brick tomb around her. Pictures of that grave with its spray-painted epitaph: "Here lies Vera, God Help Us!" became one of the symbols of the post-Katrina mayhem.

Arkansas, Texas take some evacuees
Some bus evacuees began arriving Saturday in Arkansas, where the National Guard prepared to shelter thousands for weeks. At least 15,000 people sought refuge in the inland state in 2005, following Katrina and Rita.

Texas prepared to house up to 45,000 evacuees, even though that state's eastern stretches were within the range of where Gustav could make landfall.

In Beaumont, not far from where Hurricane Rita roared ashore as a Category 3 in 2005, residents were boarding up homes and leaving. In neighboring Orange County, officials were inundated "by thousands" of people calling to register for evacuation assistance, a county spokeswoman said.

To the east, Louisiana residents were checking into hotels along Alabama's coast. Mitch and Laura Tucker of Mandeville brought along their dog, Roux, whom they saved during Katrina.

"We don't know what we'll be going back to," he said.

Hanna also threatens
Meanwhile, 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.

As it spun over open waters, Hanna had sustained winds near 45 mph early Sunday night. The hurricane center warned that it could kick up dangerous rip currents along parts of the southeastern U.S. coast.

The U.S. State Department urged Americans to be aware of the risks caused by Hanna to people traveling to the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. It urged U.S. citizens lacking safe shelter to consider leaving while flights are still available.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26451955/

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