| Aug. 28th, 2005 @ 08:48 pm its a GAS GAS GAS.... |
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Current Mood:  annoyed
So Hurricane Katrina is about to hit New Orleans.
Its big I mean really big N.O. has been evacuated big.
Its New Orleans is sinking and I don't know how to swim big.
It's so big that 21 oil platforms in the gulf of mexico have shut down. Oddly enough these 21 platforms produce 1/4 of all the oil produced in the USA. So why do we care here up in alberta? Well short Economics lesson ... little supply means prices go up when demand stays the same. Since folks need gas to get out and some states are getting a massive influx of folks from NO and other cities. Expect prices at the pumps to increase sometime over night or the next day a couple cents.
Here's the BBC artical about it.
US city evacuates as storm looms
Hundreds of thousands of New Orleans residents have fled as Hurricane Katrina, strengthening to the deadliest level, closes in on the city.
Highways were jammed as people obeyed Mayor Ray Nagin's order to evacuate the Louisiana city for higher ground.
Those unable to leave through infirmity or lack of transport queued around the block to get into refuges - including the 77,000-seater Superdome stadium.
Katrina is expected to hit land about sunrise on Monday (1100GMT).
Forecasters say Katrina has grown to a Category Five - the scale's highest, and it will hit the city with winds of up to 160mph (260km/h).
Issuing his unprecedented mandatory evacuation, Mayor Nagin said the city - which sits some six feet (two metres) below sea level - was at real risk of flooding.
The post-hurricane surge could reach 28 ft (8.5 metres) toppling the barriers that protect the city and its historic French Quarter, he warned.
"This is a once in a lifetime event," he told the city's 485,000 residents.
"The city of New Orleans has never seen a hurricane of this magnitude hit it directly."
Darkening skies
Many of the city's businesses and homes had been boarded up and sandbags stacked up in doorways.
Resident Sharron told the BBC News website she did not expect to find much left of the home that has been in her family for 300 years when she returns to the city.
"I pray for those who could not find a way out of the city. I believe this will devastate the city I love with all my heart," she said.
The BBC's Alistair Leithead in New Orleans says many of those who are not leaving have headed to hotels in higher areas. Car parks are full.
The most frail have been given priority in the city's Superdome, the home of the NFL's New Orleans Saints and now a make-shift shelter. Doctors and nurses are on hand.
More serious cases have been taken to hospitals in other cities in Louisiana.
States of emergency
The neighbouring states of Mississippi and Alabama are also braced for the impact of the storm, which is now swirling over the Gulf of Mexico.
US President George W Bush has already issued a state of emergency in Louisiana and Mississippi, freeing the path for federal aid for those affected.
"If it came ashore with the intensity it has now and went to the New Orleans area, it would be the strongest we've had in recorded history there," Ed Rappaport of the US National Hurricane Center said.
Some 21 oil platforms on the Gulf of Mexico, which produces about a quarter of US domestic oil and gas output, have been evacuated.
The storm, which formed in the Bahamas, lashed South Florida on Thursday, claiming the lives of nine people, uprooting trees, downing power lines and causing extensive flooding.
Katrina is the sixth hurricane to hit the Florida coastline since last August.
Only three Category Five storms have hit the US since record-keeping began.
The last to strike the Louisiana area was Hurricane Camille in 1969, which killed more than 250 people.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/4192218.stm
Published: 2005/08/29 02:13:49 GMT
© BBC MMV |
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