Mandatory evacuation begins
2008-08-31 16:36
New Orleans - The mandatory evacuation of New Orleans ahead of Hurricane Gustav began on Sunday morning, with residents on the city's vulnerable West Bank told to start leaving first.
By noon, residents in the rest of the city were supposed to be out of their homes and heading to safety.
City officials were nervously watching Hurricane Gustav's track. The storm had picked up speed and was moving northwest at 26km/h with winds of 193km/h.
It was projected to make landfall as early as Monday, and could bring a storm surge of up to six metres to the coast and rainfall totals of up to 38cm.
Mayor Ray Nagin called Gustav "the mother of all storms", and says anyone ignoring calls to leave would be on their own.
Tropical Storm Hanna
Meanwhile, Reuters reported on Sunday that Tropical Storm
Hanna swirled east of Florida, embedded in a complicated
climatic environment that made it impossible to forecast its
destination and likely strength.
The eighth tropical storm of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane
season could just as easily end up over Cuba, bring heavy
rainfall to citrus country in central Florida or drift
northward toward South Carolina.
"Unfortunately there is still considerable uncertainty with
the forecast," said Jamie Rhome, a hurricane specialist at the
US National Hurricane Centre in Miami.
"It's impossible to
say that this system is going to do this or that.
None of the computer models used to predict storm tracks
actually took Hanna into the southeastern United States at this
point, Rhome said. - AP/Reuters