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120828 Tracking Isaac: The Latest On The Storm’s Path

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Tracking Isaac: The Latest On The Storm’s Path

By The Associated Press | Associated Press – 1 hr 24 mins ago
 

Hurricane Isaac is expected to hit over southeastern Louisiana, possibly the New Orleans area, sometime Tuesday night or early Wednesday and is gaining steam with sustained winds swirling at 75 mph.

The center of the storm that was about 75 miles from the mouth of Mississippi River at midday. Landfall would come during the seventh anniversary Hurricane Katrina that devastated the area. Isaac is expected to maintain hurricane strength, making it the first to hit the Gulf Coast since Ike in 2008.

WHERE AND HOW STRONG?

As of Tuesday morning, the U.S. National Hurricane Center predicted Isaac would maintain at least Category 1 strength. Winds would be at least 75 mph and can be as high as 95 mph.

Southeastern Louisiana is in its crosshairs, but the track could still veer farther west, or to the east in Mississippi. Regardless of where it hits, Isaac’s reach is large and it will dump heavy rain as far east as Florida.

DAMAGE

While people across the coast were boarding up their homes to prepare for damaging winds, the even bigger fear is potential flooding. Isaac could push storm surge as high as 12 feet into parts of Louisiana and Mississippi, and 1 to 3 feet high as far away as Florida’s west coast.

Around New Orleans, residents hunkered down behind levees fortified after Katrina.

Isaac already left a trail of destruction in the Caribbean, most of it blamed on flooding that killed 24 people.

REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION

Isaac veered well west of the Republican National Convention site in Tampa, but it was soggy over the weekend in the bayside city. The GOP pushed back the start of speeches a day to Tuesday and protesters’ ranks have been small, in part because of the soaking brought on by Isaac and in part because of the huge police presence in the city.

The coming storm has also altered some Republican governors’ plans to attend. Florida Gov. Rick Scott canceled a speaking engagement, and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley canceled their trips to Tampa.

EVACUATIONS

Officials in Louisiana’s St. Charles Parish near New Orleans and Terrebonne Parish that includes Houma closer to the Gulf have told about 73,000 residents total to leave ahead of the storm. Some coastal residents in Alabama have also been told to evacuate. However, officials haven’t ordered the kind of evacuations that have in the past clogged interstates, with both sides of the highway heading one direction. In New Orleans, Mayor Mitch Landrieu said evacuations would not be ordered and told residents to prepare carefully and ride it out.

Momma’s Source: yahoonews

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Hurricane Irene Rages Up U.S. East Coast

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Hurricane Irene rages up U.S. east coast

By Joe Rauch | Reuters – 1 hr 41 mins ago

  • Pedestrians walk past sandbags used to control possible floods at downtown Manhattan in New York August 26, 2011. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

WILMINGTON, N.C. (Reuters) – Hurricane Irene lashed North Carolina with heavy winds, rain and surf Saturday as it neared land on a path threatening the densely populated U.S. east coast with flooding and power outages.

New York City ordered unprecedented evacuations and transit shutdowns as states from the Carolinas to Maine declared emergencies due to Irene, whose nearly 600 mile width guaranteed a stormy weekend for tens of millions of people.

With winds of 90 miles per hour, Irene weakened slightly to a Category 1 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale by early Saturday but forecasters warned that it remained a large and dangerous storm.

In the port and holiday city of Wilmington, North Carolina, thousands of people were without electricity as Irene’s winds intensified. The streets were empty before dawn and the air was filled with the smell and sound of pine trees cracking under the advancing storm.

At 5 a.m. EDT (0900 GMT), the center of Irene was about 35 miles south of Cape Lookout, North Carolina, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

“Some weakening is expected after Irene reaches the coast of North Carolina but Irene is forecast to remain a hurricane as it moves near or over the mid-Atlantic states and New England,” it said.

In summer weather, hundreds of thousands of residents and vacationers had evacuated from Irene’s path. Supermarkets and hardware stores were inundated with people stocking up on food, water, flashlights, batteries, generators and other supplies.

“Our number of customers has tripled in the last day or two as people actually said ‘Wow, this thing is going to happen’,” said Jack Gurnon, owner of a hardware store in Boston.

Airlines canceled nearly 7,000 flights over the weekend and all three New York area airports were due to close to incoming flights at noon Saturday.

President Barack Obama said the storm could be “extremely dangerous and costly” for a nation that recalls the destruction in 2005 from Hurricane Katrina, which swamped New Orleans, killed up to 1,800 people and caused $80 billion in damage.

SOLDIERS AT THE READY

Irene, the first hurricane of the 2011 Atlantic season, caused as much as $1.1 billion in insured losses in the Caribbean, catastrophe modeling company AIR Worldwide said.

Losses are expected along the U.S. east coast from high winds, heavy seas, flooding and fallen trees. Irene is the first hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland since Ike pounded Texas in 2008.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the military stood ready to help, with more than 100,000 National Guard forces available if needed in eastern states.

A quarter of a million New Yorkers were ordered to leave homes in low-lying areas, including the financial district surrounding Wall Street in Manhattan, as authorities prepared for flooding Sunday.

A mandatory evacuation was ordered for residents in large areas of nearby Long Island, which juts into the Atlantic.

New York’s mass transit system, which carries 8.5 million people on weekdays, was due to start shutting down around midday Saturday.

“We’ve never done a mandatory evacuation before and we wouldn’t be doing it now if we didn’t think this storm had the potential to be very serious,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

In Washington, Irene forced the postponement of a ceremony Sunday to dedicate the new memorial to civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Tens of thousands of people, including Obama, had been expected to attend.

Flooding from Irene killed at least one person in Puerto Rico and two in Dominican Republic. The storm knocked out power in the Bahamian capital, Nassau, and blocked roads with trees.

(Reporting by Tom Brown in Miami, Daniel Trotta, Basil Katz, Richard Leong, Joan Gralla, Lynn Adler and Ben Berkowitz in New York, Jeremy Pelofsky and Vicki Allen in Washington, Laura MacInnis and Alister Bull on Martha’s Vineyard, Ed Barnett in Morehead City, North Carolina; Writing by John O’Callaghan; Editing by Tim Pearce)

Momma’s Source: yahoonews

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