Gulf Coast Residents Preparing for Gustav

BEAUMONT, Texas (AP) - The possibility of Tropical Storm Gustav slamming into Texas as a powerful hurricane put the state and residents on alert Thursday as the deadly storm continued a path toward the Gulf of Mexico.

Gov. Rick Perry issued a disaster declaration for 61 counties in case Gustav arrives early next week along the coast, where some people Thursday were already filling up their gas tanks and stocking up on water and supplies.

Forecasters say the tropical storm could make landfall Tuesday anywhere from Texas to the Florida Panhandle. With top sustained winds just below hurricane strength, Gustav was projected to become a major Category 3 hurricane upon entering the warm and deep Gulf waters.

Authorities say Gustav has killed 59 people in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

"I urge Texans along the coast to monitor this storm closely, heed warnings from their local leaders, and take necessary precautions to protect their families, homes and businesses," Perry said.

Hotels in East Texas filled up fast as Gulf Coast residents made plans to head north. Tourism officials in Tyler said that most of the East Texas city's 2,200 hotel rooms are booked for the coming weekend and beyond.

"Flooded - the phone has not stopped ringing since yesterday," said Patty Boaz, a front desk clerk for America's Best Value Inn and Suites in Tyler. "We're getting bombarded."

Gustav's possible path toward Texas caused Perry to suspend his planned trip to the Republican National Convention in Minnesota. He activated numerous state resources, including putting up to 5,000 members of the Texas National Guard on standby.

The Texas Department of Transportation used electronic signs along the highway to urge motorists to fuel up their vehicles.

In Beaumont, which bore the brunt of Rita when the Category 3 hurricane landed in 2005, all eight pumps at a gas station were busy Thursday afternoon with drivers reluctant to wait until the last minute to fill up.

"I'm more passive right now," said John Fisher, 45, a retired store manager filling up his car at the crowded station. "I'm going to wait and see what happens with the storm."

At a Home Depot, people were stacking up on water, plastic, gasoline cans and plywood.

Hal Miller, 50, bought five sheets of plywood to help board up his daughter's home in Mont Belvieu although he wasn't sure her house would be in the path of the storm.

"For her peace of mind, I'm going to board up her windows," Miller said.

In Houston, officials were monitoring the hurricane and had begun numerous preparations for the storm, said Joe Stinebaker, a spokesman for Harris County Judge Ed Emmett.

With Hurricane Katrina three years ago, Houston's Astrodome had sheltered 25,000 of the estimated 250,000 evacuees who came to Texas from Louisiana.

Louisiana, Texas and Harris County officials have consulted and any evacuees would be moved inland rather than to Harris County, Stinebaker said.

He said it wouldn't make sense to move people to a hurricane zone. Tropical Storm Hanna, which was named Thursday morning, is trailing Gustav's path, and he said it would be disastrous if the storm followed evacuees to the Houston area.

At a Beaumont grocery store, Janice Espree, a homemaker, had three 24-packs of bottled water in her shopping cart, as well as some fruit.

She said she was just buying extra supplies in case the storm comes her way.

"I think most people here are prepared and are ready to leave if they have to, but some people, with the high gas prices, might have to ride the storm out," Espree said.

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Associated Press Writers Ana Ley in Houston, Jay Root in Austin and Linda Stewart Ball in Dallas contributed to this report.

By JUAN A. LOZANO

Associated Press Writer

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

(4:00 PM Update) KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) - At least 59 people are dead in Haiti and the Dominican Republic from the effects of Tropical Storm Gustav, which is now taking aim at Jamaica.
     

The storm is hitting Jamaica with tropical-storm-force winds, and forecasters say it could grow to a hurricane before hitting the
capital of Kingston later in the day. Kingston's main airport is closed, and buses have stopped running.

Forecasters say parts of Jamaica could get 25 inches of rain.

As of 5 p-m, Eastern time, the center of the storm was about 15 miles east-northeast of Kingston. It's moving west at about six
miles an hour, with top sustained winds of near 70 miles an hour. A hurricane warning remains in effect for Jamaica, and a hurricane
watch has been posted for parts of Cuba. 

Grand Cayman is bracing for a possible strike tomorrow. A resort owner says Gustav doesn't look as threatening as Hurricane Ivan, which destroyed 70 percent of the island's buildings four years ago.

Along the U.S. Gulf Coast, which could be in Gustav's path, preparations are under way. Louisiana and Texas have put their
national guards on standby. Officials in New Orleans say a mandatory evacuation may be necessary.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - Haitian officials are reporting 51 deaths from Gustav, raising the storm's overall toll to 59.

Civil protection department director Marie Alta Jean-Baptiste says the death count increased fivefold on Thursday as news reached officials from remote areas.

At least 25 people were killed near Jacmel, on the country's southern peninsula, where Gustav came ashore Tuesday as a Category 1 hurricane.

Civil protection official Jean-Michel Sabbat says most of those people were killed by landslides and falling trees in the mountains.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

(3:00 PM Update) BEAUMONT (AP) - The possibility of Tropical Storm Gustav slamming into Texas as a powerful hurricane put the state and residents on alert today as the deadly storm continued a path toward the Gulf of Mexico.

Governor Rick Perry issued a disaster declaration for 61 counties in case Gustav arrives early next week along the coast, where some people today were already filling up their gas tanks and stocking up on water and supplies.

Forecasters say the tropical storm could make landfall Tuesday anywhere from Texas to the Florida Panhandle. With top sustained winds just below hurricane strength, Gustav was projected to become a major Category Three hurricane upon entering the warm and deep Gulf waters.

Authorities say Gustav has killed 23 people in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

(1:45 PM Update) AUSTIN - Gov. Rick Perry issued a disaster declaration late Tuesday in response to the significant threat posed by Tropical Storm Gustav to 61 Texas counties. The governor's declaration allows the state to initiate necessary preparedness efforts, such as pre-deploying resources requested by local officials to ensure their communities are ready to respond to severe weather.

The governor has called on state resources to prepare for Tropical Storm Gustav, which is expected to strengthen as it enters the Gulf of Mexico over the Labor Day weekend.  All state resources are ready for rapid deployment as necessary, and volunteer organizations are prepared to provide mass care support for residents.

"Texas is closely following Gustav's track as it approaches the Gulf and we are preparing for any potential impact on our communities," said Gov. Perry. "I urge Texans along the coast to monitor this storm closely, heed warnings from their local leaders, and take necessary precautions to protect their families, homes and businesses."

According to the National Weather Service, all Gulf States are in the projected path of Tropical Storm Gustav, which is expected to become a hurricane later today.  Once Gustav reaches the warmer waters of the Gulf of Mexico, it is expected to strengthen before making landfall.

Texas has taken the following actions:

Texas Military Forces: Up to 5,000 guardsmen and 19 aerial resources are on standby for deployment as needed.

Texas Engineering Extension Service: Texas Task Force 1 and Texas Task Force 2 are on standby if search and rescue capabilities are needed.

Department of Public Safety: Commercial Vehicle Enforcement troopers are on standby to inspect buses that may be used in potential evacuations.

Department of State Health Services: The Multi-Agency Coordination Center is activated and will provide planning and response for health issues throughout the storm's potential impact. All hospitals are reporting their bed capacity and potential need for evacuation twice a day. DSHS has also arranged for a medical special needs shelter.

Health and Human Services Commission: HHSC is working with the state's information and referral centers to increase capacity for an expected surge in calls to the 2-1-1 system to register for transportation assistance.

Department of Family and Protective Services: The agency is making sure foster parents and residential providers have updated emergency plans and know how to notify the state of their new location if they need to evacuate.

Department of Aging and Disability Services: Staff at the Richmond and Lufkin state schools are monitoring the storm and making preparations to ensure adequate staffing to shelter in place or evacuate if necessary.

Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs:  Hurricane housing resources for communities are on the agency's website (www.tdhca.state.tx.us). TDHCA is reminding all affordable housing rental owners statewide to keep their apartment vacancy information current as they supply information to TDHCA.

Texas Department of Agriculture: The agency has identified commodities that are available for distribution should it be necessary, and is coordinating with the Salvation Army and the American Red Cross.

Texas Commission on Environmental Quality: A strike team capable of handling hazardous materials, additional public water supply and wastewater specialists, and a self contained mobile command post trailer with interoperable radio communications and satellite/wireless internet connections is on standby.

Texas Workforce Commission: All Texas coastal workforce centers remain open.

Texas Department of Transportation: Dynamic message signs are being used to urge residents along the coast to fuel up their vehicles. TxDOT personnel are also sweeping roadside shoulders and patching pavement along potential evacuation routes.
Fuel Team: Fuel supply trucks and trailers are on standby to ensure adequate fuel supplies. The industry reminds Texans to maintain fuel in their personal vehicles.
Individuals with special needs can let responders know who and where they are before an emergency or evacuation takes place by calling 2-1-1.

The Emergency Management Council and State Operations Center are fully activated. The State Operations Center is closely monitoring Tropical Storm Gustav and holding twice daily conference calls with federal, state and local officials, private industry partners, volunteer organizations, and the National Weather Service.

For the latest information and to view the disaster proclamation visit www.governor.state.tx.us/hurricane/. 

 

(Noon Update) AUSTIN (AP) - Texas is getting ready for a possible brush with Gustav as the tropical storm continues heading toward the Gulf of Mexico.

State officials said Thursday that resources are on standby, and Gov. Rick Perry has suspended plans to attend the Republican National Convention next week in Minnesota.

Forecasters say the tropical storm could make landfall Tuesday anywhere from Texas to the Florida Panhandle. Gustav was churning toward Jamaica and the Cayman Islands with winds near hurricane force.

Hotels in East Texas are filling up fast as Gulf Coast residents make plans to head north. Tourism officials in Tyler say that more than 2,000 hotel rooms in the East Texas city are full.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)

(10:45 AM Update) KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) - Tropical Storm Gustav surged toward hurricane force on Thursday as it drove toward Jamaica and aimed for the Cayman islands, prompting evacuations of tourists and offshore oil workers. In its wake, impoverished Haitians scrambled for food. Meanwhile, New Orleans kept nervous watch, three years after Katrina's destruction.

Stay with KFDM for the latest on Gustav.

Gustav - the cause of flooding and mudslides that killed 23 in Haiti and the Dominican Republic - was nearly stationary about 80 miles (130 kilometers) east of Jamaica's low-lying capital, but it was expected to run west-southwest later in the day, very close to the shore.

Its top sustained winds were just below hurricane strength at about 70 mph (110 kph), according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Also Thursday, Tropical Storm Hanna formed in the Atlantic, northeast of the northern Leeward Islands.

It was too early to predict whether Hanna will threaten the United States, but Gustav was already causing jitters from Mexico's Cancun resort to the Florida panhandle. Gustav was projected to become a major Category 3 hurricane over warm and deep Gulf waters, sending oil prices jumping above US$120 a barrel Thursday on fears of production slowdowns.

Royal Dutch Shell PLC has evacuated nearly 400 people and said it will pull out another 270 Thursday, affecting production. BP PLC also removed personnel from the region that produces about a quarter of U.S. crude and much of its natural gas. Transocean, the world's biggest offshore drilling contractor, is suspending operations at all of its rigs and pulling nearly 1,600 people out of the Gulf.

Some models showed Gustav taking a path toward Louisiana and other Gulf states devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita three years ago.

Jamaican authorities urged people in rural areas to seek shelter, but businesses remained open early Thursday in Kingston, where a steady drizzle was falling from dark clouds.

Emergency officials opened shelters and sent relief supplies to flood-prone areas.

Gustav hit Haiti as a hurricane on Tuesday, causing floods and landslides that killed 15 people on Haiti's deforested southern peninsula, where it dumped 12 inches (30 centimeters) or more of rain. A landslide buried eight people, including a mother and six of her children, in the neighboring Dominican Republic.

Gustav's projected track pointed directly at the Cayman Islands, an offshore banking center where residents boarded up homes and stocked up on emergency supplies.

Forecasters said Gustav might slip between Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and the western tip of Cuba on Sunday, then March toward a Tuesday collision with the U.S. Gulf Coast - anywhere from south Texas to the Florida panhandle.

"We know it's going to head into the Gulf. After that, we're not sure," said meteorologist Rebecca Waddington at the National Hurricane Center. "For that reason, everyone in the Gulf needs to be monitoring the storm."

New Orleans began planning a possible mandatory evacuation, hoping to prevent the chaos it saw after Hurricane Katrina struck three years ago Friday. Mayor Ray Nagin left the Democratic National Convention in Denver to help the city prepare.

Any damage to the Gulf oil infrastructure could send U.S. gasoline prices spiking.

"A bad storm churning in the Gulf could be a nightmare scenario," said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp. In Chicago. "We might see oil prices spike US$5 to US$8 if it really rips into platforms."

Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic were still getting heavy rain Thursday, and rising waters damaged many homes.

In the low-lying Cayman Islands, where Gustav is expected to hit Friday, tourists flocked to the airport to get out before the storm.

Stacey McLaughlan of Albany, New York, said she and her husband were told to leave their resort by noon Thursday or prepare to move to a public shelter.

Cayman Airways pilot Chris Witt says a lot of evacuation flights are planned for Thursday, but McLaughlan said she and her husband had to pay an extra US$1,000 to get out because their airline refused to bring in a plane to return them to the U.S.

Finding affordable food was an immediate priority for many in Haiti. Jean Ramando, an 18-year-old banana grower, said winds tore down a dozen of his family's banana trees, so bushels of 60 bananas they once sold to Port-au-Prince markets for 135 gourdes ($3.55) would have to be moved at prices as high as 300 gourdes ($7.80).

"The wind blew them down quickly so we need to make some money quickly," he said as he carried bushels through floodwaters.

In the Dominican Republic, friends and relatives buried a mother and six of her seven children, smothered when a landslide crushed their tin-roofed shack.

Marcelina Feliz, 32, was found hugging the body of her smallest child, rescue officials said. A neighbor was also killed.

"I don't know how I can live now, because none of my family is left," said Marino Borges, her husband and father of several of her children.

By HOWARD CAMPBELL

Associated Press Writer

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

(9:30AM Update) KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) - Tropical Storm Gustav surged toward renewed hurricane force on Thursday as it drove toward Jamaica, while many miles away, New Orleans watched it with a nervous eye.

Gustav - the cause of flooding that killed 23 in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, was nearly stationary about 80 miles (130 kilometers) east of Jamaica's capital, but it was expected to run west-southwest, very close to Jamaica later in the day, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Maximum sustained winds were near 70 mph (110 kph) and it could become a hurricane again soon.

The storm was projected eventually to reach Category 3 force, causing jitters from Mexico's Cancun resort to the Florida Panhandle and sending oil prices jumping above US$120 a barrel on Thursday on fears it could slow production of oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

October-delivery prices had dipped below US$113 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange early in the week.

Royal Dutch Shell PLC has evacuated nearly 400 people and said it will bring in another 270 Thursday. It said production will be impacted.

BP PLC was also removing personnel from the region that's home to about a quarter of U.S. crude production and much of its natural gas, and Transocean, the world's biggest offshore drilling contractor, is suspending operations at all of its rigs and pulling nearly 1,600 people out of the Gulf.

Some models showed Gustav taking a path toward Louisiana and other Gulf states devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita three years ago.

      Jamaican authorities urged people in rural areas to seek shelter, but businesses remained open early Thursday in Kingston, where a steady drizzle was falling from dark clouds.

      Emergency officials opened shelters and sent relief supplies to flood-prone areas.

      Gustav hit Haiti as a hurricane on Tuesday, causing floods and landslides that killed 15 people on Haiti's deforested southern peninsula, where it dumped 12 inches (30 centimeters) or more of rain. A landslide buried eight people, including a mother and six of her children, in the neighboring Dominican Republic.

      Gustav's projected track pointed directly at the Cayman Islands, an offshore banking center where residents boarded up homes and stocked up on emergency supplies.

      Forecasters said Gustav might slip between Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and the western tip of Cuba on Sunday, then March toward a Tuesday collision with the U.S. Gulf Coast - anywhere from south Texas to the Florida panhandle.

      "We know it's going to head into the Gulf. After that, we're not sure," said meteorologist Rebecca Waddington at the National Hurricane Center. "For that reason, everyone in the Gulf needs to be monitoring the storm."

      New Orleans began planning a possible mandatory evacuation, hoping to prevent the chaos it saw after Hurricane Katrina struck three years ago Friday. Mayor Ray Nagin left the Democratic National Convention in Denver to help the city prepare.

      Any damage to the Gulf oil infrastructure could send U.S. gasoline prices spiking.

      "A bad storm churning in the Gulf could be a nightmare scenario," said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp. in Chicago. "We might see oil prices spike US$5 to US$8 if it really rips into platforms."

      Gustav is particularly worrisome because there are few surrounding wind currents capable of shearing off the top of the storm and diminishing its power, the hurricane center said.

"Combined with the deep warm waters, rapid intensification could occur in a couple of days."

      Nearly 30,000 people were evacuated from low-lying areas in eastern Cuba, and state television showed muddy, waist-high water damaging homes. The Cayman Islands ordered citizens to secure loose materials in their yards to prevent them from becoming missiles in high winds, and told them to stock up on food, medicine and fuel for generators.

      In the Dominican Republic, a mother's screams and the roar of falling earth jolted a Santo Domingo shantytown from its sleep Tuesday. Marcelina Feliz and six of her seven children - ranging in age from 11 months to 15 years - were killed when a landslide crushed their tin-roofed house.

      Feliz, 32, was found hugging the body of her smallest child, rescue officials said. A neighbor was also killed.

      "I don't know how I can live now, because none of my family is left," said Marino Borges, Feliz's husband and father of several of her children.

      A new tropical depression formed in the Atlantic, and the hurricane center said it could become a tropical storm Thursday or Friday.

      It had maximum sustained winds near 35 mph (55 kph) and was centered about 355 miles (575 kilometers) east-northeast of the northern Leeward Islands, moving toward the west-northwest near 5 mph (8 kph).

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)