Hurricane Gustav Causes Evacuation Of Gulf Coast

Hurricane Gustav has sufficiently inspired over one million people to flee from the Gulf Coast with many more expected to follow. The damage from Hurricane Katrina is fresh in everyone's mind in this region, so officials expect a high level of co-operation from residents in leaving the area ahead of the storm.

Even John McCain is taking note of Gustav, saying his Republican Party is considering postponing the Republican National Convention due to Gustav.

"It wouldn't be appropriate to have a festive occasion while a near tragedy or a terrible challenge is presented in the form of a natural disaster," said McCain.

What makes Hurricane Gustav so scary is its' intensity. The hurricane has been upgraded to a Category 4.

"With Hurricane Gustav now a category 4 storm, it could end up being the worst hurricane to strike the Gulf Coast region of the U.S. since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. Gustav's strength is enough to damage oil and gas platforms as well as oil refineries, as hurricanes Katrina and Rita did in 2005. Energy prices had climbed all week as Gustav's path was being plotted, which put it dead-center along the same region of the Gulf Coast as the powerful hurricane Katrina of 2005 that flooded New Orleans and left over 1500 dead in its wake."

Despite all these dire warnings, there are still people who refuse to move out of harm's way. Poor residents of New Orleans say they just don't have the money to weather/08/30/new.orleans/index.html">leave.

""The thing is," said one man, "most people don't have cars to leave, don't have money for gas. Pay for a hotel for that long? I mean, you have to do whatever you have to do, and I guess I'm gonna stay and work."

Copyright 2007-2009 by Times of the Internet. All Rights Reserved.

Times of the Internet, now in Spanish


Published: Sunday 31st of August 2008 07:47:08 AM
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