Saturday, August 30, 2008

Hurricane Gustav Headed Straight For Louisiana

Hurricane Gustav is nearing a category 5 strength and is headed straight for Louisiana. It is currently off the coast of Cuba. The National Hurricane Association is ordering a hurricane watch for Mississippi, Louisiana, and parts of Texas. According to courant.com, a million residents have already fled from the coast causing jammed highways and gas stations to run out of fuel. A mandatory evacuation is expected to be put into place on Saturday night. Gustav has quickly been getting stronger, going from a tropical storm to a category 4 hurricane in about a 24 hour time period. The hurricane has already taken 80 lives while traveling through the Caribbean. 
Gustav is scheduled to hit land on Tuesday morning. Forecasters do not expect New Orleans to take a direct hit, but it is too early to tell. The city of New Orleans is still recovering from Hurricane Katrina which hit in August 2005. Katrina caused about 81.2 billion dollars of damage and took at least 1,836 lives according to cnn.com. 
Members of the National Gaurd have been going door to door in many areas warning people that they should evacuate as soon as possible. Although most people are evacuating, some people refuse to leave their homes. Dale DeBruyne said "I stayed for Katrina, and I'll stay again." Under these circumstances, what would you do?

3 comments:

RHAM News said...

Good. Let's keep an eye on this story. Also, any local tie-ins???

Grace said...

I Have a local tie in.
My aunt and uncle had to evacuate because they are in the path of the storm!

Anonymous said...

wow Grace, that's unfortunate. Nice tie in though. :]