Homepage der Stadt New Orleans:
http://www.cityofno.com/
Mayor Announces Mandatory Evacuation
Hurricane Info:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/
Film:
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/flt/t1/loop-vis.html
Mayor Announces Mandatory Evacuation
Mayor C. Ray Nagin has announced a mandatory evacuation for the City of New Orleans beginning Sunday. Mayor Nagin called for a mandatory evacuation on the West Bank of New Orleans beginning at 8 a.m. Saturday. The mandatory evacuation is set to begin at noon on the East Bank.
The Mayor said Hurricane
Gustav is likely to be larger and stronger than Hurricane Katrina.
The City Assisted Evacuation Plan will continue until midnight on Saturday and from 6 a.m. until noon on Sunday to provide transportation for citizens who cannot evacuate on their own.
Those who need transportation should go to one of 17 designated pick-up sites. Residents who have special medical needs should call 311 for assistance.
Mayor Nagin urged tourists to
leave the city immediately.
According to Mary Beth Romig of the New Orleans Convention and Visitors’ Bureau said local hotels will heed the evacuation order and close for business. She further urged citizens to depart from the city.
Travelers who have airline reservations may board a shuttle at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown New Orleans. Travelers must have proof of a reservation in order to board.
The City is paring down its staff to a skeleton crew. Mayor Nagin said he will trim the staff from approximately 200 people to 50 people.
The New Orleans Police Department may also have some officers evacuate from the city.
Most other city agencies are evacuating their entire staffs.
Mayor Nagin urged that the West Bank may be most severely impacted by the hurricane and storm surge.
He reiterated that the area’s storm protection system is not adequate to protect the New Orleans area in the face of the anticipated storm.
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Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed more than 100 platforms and shut in 92 percent of oil output and 83 percent of natural gas production. A shut-in involves closing safety valves below the water's surface to prevent oil and gas releases.
Houston-based Weather Insight upped its projections of production susceptible to Gustav-related shut-ins Thursday, saying virtually all oil and natural gas output could face short-term interruptions.
Waiting for Gustav Oil Industry Girds for First Post-Katrina Test
Posted on: Saturday, 30 August 2008
By JOHN PORRETTO
STRONGER moorings for production platforms.
Deeper pipelines.
Larger supplies of backup electricity, water and other necessities .
The petroleum industry has spent lots of time and money since the hurricanes of 2005 trying to make sure it's better prepared for the next big blow.
It could be named Gustav, a deadly storm that appears headed for the northern Gulf of Mexico, home to a web of platforms, pipelines and refineries in a region that produces roughly 25 percent of the nation's oil and 15 percent of its natural gas.
Projections show Gustav arriving early next week as a Category 3 storm, striking anywhere from the Florida Panhandle to eastern Texas.
...
Still, as Gustav churns, a question lingers: How will the revamped structures, pipelines and other equipment hold up to a major hurricane?
"I think the industry is smarter, but it's hard to say if it's better prepared," said David Purcell, an analyst at Tudor Pickering Holt & Co. Securities. "If you think about an old car and you repair it, it's hard to make it better than new. But you can make it close to new. The question is: Is new good enough?"
...
"If one major deep-water production platform is destroyed, you're talking about a $1 billion-or-more loss," said Satish Nagarajaiah, an engineering professor at Rice University in Houston. "If it's multiple rigs and platforms in a variety of water depths, then we're talking billions of dollars."
....
On the refining side, the two biggest challenges after the 2005 storms were power disruptions and flooding - both of which prompted refiners to examine their practices and make adjustments. After Katrina and Rita, refineries accounting for 29 percent of U.S. refining capacity were temporarily shut down. Altogether, the Gulf Coast is home to nearly half the nation's refining capacity.
Since the 2005 punch, many refineries have raised critical equipment so it won't flood and beefed up plans to get backup power as quickly as possible.
...
A lot of change has occurred in how we prepare for these severe storms.
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The Republican convention is going to take place precisely when Gustav hits the U.S. Expect a sudden focus on global warming and climate change in an attack on John McCain. The easy prediction is that McCain will respond by saying that he was the original sponsor of the only global warming bill to ever be voted on in the Senate. But if Bush had supported emissions limits or if McCain’s bill had passed, would that have made any difference? Of course not.
....
McCain orders convention changes because of storm
"I pledge that tomorrow night, and if necessary throughout our convention, we will act as Americans and not as Republicans because America needs us now," McCain said.
McCain, his wife Cindy, and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, toured the emergency management center in Mississippi, a state that could be hit hard by the approaching hurricane.
The Bush White House and Republicans in general are still shadowed by criticism of their handling of relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans and parts of the Mississippi Gulf Coast three years ago. Party leaders fear that televised scenes of celebrations and partying at the convention could subject them to similar criticism now.
"We must redirect our efforts from the really celebratory event of the nomination of the president and vice president of our party to acting as all Americans," McCain told reporters.
Party leaders were considering shortening the big four-day event as Gustav approached the Gulf Coast with potentially deadly strength.
The convention, a marquee event meant to send McCain into the fall campaign with a burst of energy and good feeling, already was becoming overwhelmed by alarming news of the hurricane just three years after deadly Katrina struck New Orleans.
GOP officials were tracking the path of the storm, trying to determine how to complete the official business of nominating McCain while also being sensitive to the thousands of people fleeing the Gulf Coast — more than 1,000 miles down the Mississippi from St. Paul.
Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who is scheduled to be the convention's keynote speaker, said Sunday, "We have to make sure the focus is on the South, on Gustav, make sure that all of the resources are there, and that anything that is done with regard to the convention doesn't take anything away from that and is done in a serious way."
Several officials said various possibilities were being considered — including adding more public-service elements, and trimming back the pep-rally segments.
A senior McCain source tells CNN they are considering turning the convention into a service event — a massive telethon to raise money for the Red Cross and other agencies to help with the hurricane.
"He wants to do something service oriented if and when the storm hits and it’s as bad as its expected to be now," said this McCain source.
They are also hoping to get McCain himself to a storm-affected area as soon as possible.
Mein Eindruck: Die Republikaner wollen aus dem Alptraum für sich Gewinn ziehen, indem sie Anhänger und Neutrale zu Spenden aufrufen und sich selbst bei der Verteilung auf dem LKW filmen lassen.
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Democrats turned their attention to the storm as well. Presidential nominee Barack Obama offered to tap his sprawling network of donors and volunteers to help any victims of Gustav.
"I think we can get tons of volunteers to travel down there if it becomes necessary," Obama told reporters after attending St. Luke's Lutheran Church in Lima, Ohio. "I think we can activate an e-mail list of a couple of million people who want to give back," he said.
He said donations could include cash, goods and individual labor.
Obama said he might visit storm-damaged areas once "things have settled down."
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Open Question:
Is Hurrican Gustav a liberal, global warming plot to shorten and take attention away from the Gop Convention?
Die Antwort auf die Frage könnte sich ironischerweise dadurch ergeben, dass die Anhänger von McCain - teilweise mit öffentlichen Mitteln der Bundesrwegierung (Bush) - mehr Finanzkraft auf die Spenden-Waage bringen als die Demokraten.
Der Umgang mit dem Notzeiten-Thema "Gustav" wird von den US-Wählern zwangsläufig als "ein Eignungstest hinsichtlich Tatkraft in Notzeiten und hinsichtlich Beschützer von US-Bürgern" bewertet. Wenn Obama über seine Anhänger hier nicht besonders viel auf die Beine stellen kann, könnte der Sturm Gustav ihn in der Wähergunst ins Hintertreffen bringen! McCain würde dann als der tatkräftigere Kandidat in schwierigen Zeiten wahrgenommen. Obama muss jetzt sehr aufpassen, dass McCain ihm nicht über die Spenden-Aufruf-Nummer die Butter vom Brot nimmt. Wegen des Parteitages hat McCain erst einmal den Vorteil der diesbezüglichen Medienaufmerksamkeit!
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The current projections (August 30) for Gustav call for it developing into a Category 4 storm when it moves just north of Cuba. It will then pass over slightly cooler water before makes landfall on the Gulf Coast late on Monday. There is an area in the southeastern Gulf called the Loop Current with very warm water that can transfer a large amount of energy to a storm. Katrina passed over this area and developed into a much larger storm more quickly than most people expected.
This will certainly raise the question again of whether global warming is increasing either the frequency or intensity of hurricanes. Hurricanes need an ocean surface temperature of at least 80 degrees [Fahrenheit] to form. The North American hurricane season runs from June to November each year because this is the period when the ocean waters warm during the northern summer. Numerous studies have been done since 2005 on determining whether global warming does increase the intensity of storms. Some studies have suggested that 83 degrees is the temperature required for Category 3 and higher storms to form. Studies have also
shown that the average number of hurricanes has not increased, but there are a higher percentage of Category 4 and Category 5 storms since 1970.
die russen haben angekündigt die fördermenge drastisch zu kürzen. die OPEC teilt mit, dass die letzten förderkürzungen eingehalten wurden und man nächste woche weitere mengenkürzungen beschliessen wird. 
