 "Photo: Tom Pennington/MCT Campus")
Three years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Mother Nature pulled another fast one on the Gulf Coast - 150 mph fast. Gustav, the second major hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season, formed as a tropical depression on the morning of Aug. 25 off the coast of Haiti. Rapidly strengthening into a tropical storm that afternoon, Gustav survived a brief period of disorganization to develop a well-defined eye wall that same night. In the early hours of Aug. 26, multiple hurricane-hunter aircrafts confirmed that, with winds topping 90 mph, Gustav had become a full-fledged hurricane.
First making landfall in Haiti, then inundating Jamaica, and ravaging Cuba, Hurricane Gustav steadily moved across the Gulf of Mexico, causing serious damage and casualties in the Dominican Republic, the Cayman Islands, and finally the United States. As of yesterday, 120 deaths had been attributed to Gustav in the United States and thc Caribbean.
Gustav's path of destruction was extensive. Operationally, Gustav transformed from a tropical storm to a hurricane in 14 hours, tying the record Hurricane Humberto set in 2007. With such a small window of opportunity, the islands in the Gulf and Caribbean had little time to prepare for its wrath.
According to Haiti's National Director of Civil Protection, 76 people died as a result of the hurricane. Some 2,100 houses were destroyed and another 8,150 damaged, causing an estimated 7,200 people to live in temporary shelters, including churches, community centers, and schools. There were eight reported deaths in the Dominican Republic.
In Jamaica, 11 deaths were reported after Gustav swept through the area as a tropical storm. From Cuba's western coasts, nearly 250,000 people were evacuated. Cuban officials reported that Gustav's 150 mph winds damaged or destroyed 90,000 homes in Pinar del Río, and knocked down 80 high-tension towers.
On the morning of Aug. 26, with Gustav still over Haiti, Louisiana officials began emergency preparations. Wary of repeating the mistakes comitted during Hurricane Katrina, authorities chose not to use the Louisiana Superdome and New Orleans Convention Center as emergency shelters. On Sept. 1, with landfall imminent, Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana declared a state of emergency, activating between 3,000 and 8,000 members of the Louisiana National Guard.
With winds just under Category 3, Gustav tore roofs off houses, damaged power lines, and caused severe flooding across the region. The city's levees, which failed disastrously during Hurricane Katrina, managed to hold against the floodwaters. A mandatory evacuation order and curfew remained in effect across the city, while hospitals worked with skeleton crews and back-up power. Fewer than 10,000 people remained in New Orleans during the storm, according to reports, while police and several thousand National Guard troops patrolled the city to prevent looting. There were 25 reported deaths in the United States.
The impact of Hurricane Gustav on the Gulf Coast region, in terms of energy operations, has yet to be fully determined, but the devastation is apparent. To provide emergency assistance and assess the damage, several European countries have sent airlift plans with supplies.
Anheuser-Busch continues to provide canned water to affected residents. Even Russia announced that it would send cargo planes with tents, construction materials, food, and essential supplies to Cuba.
President George W. Bush said the hurricane and its impact on the Gulf of Mexico region, which normally pumps a quarter of U.S. oil output and 15 percent of its natural gas, showed the need for the United States to increase its own domestic energy supplies and lessen dependence on foreign oil
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