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WORLD> America
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Strengthening Storm Gustav heads south
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-08-28 20:39 Hurricanes Katrina and Rita slashed Gulf oil production that year when they swept through as Category 5 storms on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, damaging platforms and severing pipelines. Oil companies have spent money toughening their oil rigs since, nevertheless, some started evacuating their offshore workers as Gustav approached. Energy companies also would be watching a newly formed tropical depression in the Atlantic 355 miles east-northeast of the northern Leeward Islands. The depression -- a precursor to a tropical storm -- was no immediate threat to land as it tracked to the northwest closer to the British mid-Atlantic territory of Bermuda. But computer models indicated it would eventually turn to the west or even southwest. Some projected it would become an "intense" or "major" Category 3 or higher storm that could take aim at Florida or the Caribbean islands. So-called major hurricanes are regarded as the most dangerous. Katrina came ashore near New Orleans on August 29, 2005, as a Category 3 and flooded the city after swamping its protective levees. The hurricane killed 1,500 people along the US Gulf Coast and caused at least $80 billion in damages. Emergency officials in the lush mountainous island of Jamaica urged residents to prepare for heavy rain, avoid gullies and flooded waterways, evacuate low-lying areas, and wrap their important documents in plastic to protect them from water. The storm had not moved much but was expected to track to the west-southwest near 6 mph (9 kph), graze the southern coast of Jamaica as a hurricane, then threaten the wealthy Cayman Islands offshore finance center before entering the Gulf between Cuba and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula on Sunday. |
