Gustav takes aim at US
2008-08-31 14:51
Pinar Del Rio, Cuba - A weakened Hurricane Gustav took aim at the United States on Sunday, sweeping into the Gulf of Mexico from Cuba after a week-long rampage through the Caribbean that left at least 81 dead.
New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, desperate to avoid a replay of the 2005 Katrina catastrophe, ordered the city emptied on Sunday in the face of what he called "the storm of the century" and roads out were jammed with fleeing residents.
In Cuba, Gustav tore off roofs, flattened buildings and plunged communities into darkness as it smashed through the Isle of Youth, which has more than 200,000 residents, then tore across mainland Cuba southwest of Havana, which has a population of more than two million.
It lost some of its punch in the process, with US officials downgrading it from four to three.
There were no reported deaths in Cuba, after the storm claimed lives in the Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica.
"Maximum sustained winds have decreased to near 205km per hour with higher gusts," the US National Hurricane Centre said. "Gustav is a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale."
But the centre warned it could regain Category 4 strength by the end of Sunday as it moved across warm waters of the Gulf.
"Gustav is forecast to remain a major hurricane until landfall," which was forecast for Monday, the centre said.