Retail gasoline prices edged higher as Hurricane Ike gained strength, according to AAA. Wholesale gas prices spike as fear mounts that Ike will shutter refineries.
Lost or displaced Gulf Coast residents will be able to search for their families in Hurricane Gustav's aftermath through a new FEMA locator system that was created as a lesson learned from the chaotic 2005 storms, FEMA Director David Paulison said Sunday. An estimated 18,000 people were reported lost immediately after hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma slammed into the Gulf Coast and Florida three years ago, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee their homes.
For the beaches along the Florida panhandle on the Gulf of Mexico, the summer season is getting mixed reviews from local business owners. That’s also how the executive director of the coastal area’s Bay County Tourist Development Council, Dan Rowe, talked about the summer of 2008 this past Thursday, just before the beginning of the long Labor Day holiday weekend.
Mayor Ray Nagin is taking an aggressive approach to Hurricane Gustav in hopes that we won't have another Katrina tragedy. In addition to putting a dusk til' dawn curfew in affect, Mayor Nagin has also made a pledge that anyone caught steeling (like these above during Hurricane Katrina) will go straight to prison.
Gustav's passage over Cuba took a toll on its wind speed, but it was heading over warmer Gulf waters, which are expected to reinvigorate the storm, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida. The storm's passage over Cuba shaved just 15 mph off the top wind speeds reported by the hurricane center before it made landfall on the island. Forecasters believe Gustav will quickly regain that power and more, likely growing to Category 4 status on Sunday.
New Orleans ordered residents to evacuate as Hurricane Gustav swelled into a Category 4 storm that may strike the U.S. Gulf Coast harder than Katrina did three years ago.``Tonight you need to be scared; you need to get your butts out of New Orleans now,'' Mayor Ray Nagin said at a press conference late yesterday. ``This is the mother of all storms. I am not sure we have seen anything like it.''
