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Gustav looks really bad - UPDATE

August 30, 2008

Update: it probably did a lot of damage but nothing like what they were worried about.  Expect to hear a lot of second-guessing about the evacuation orders.  Hopefully now the RNC can get on with the important business of making Sarah Palin come across as a better Veep choice than Joe Biden.


Original post: I don’t know how accurate these predictions are but three days out, they’re saying Gustav is headed straight for New Orleans.  Any chance it will just get to the middle of the Gulf, decide it likes the view and stay there and not hit land?

Mayor Nagin, whatever his shortcomings, can apparently read the writing on the wall.  He says everybody in New Orleans had better hit the road before Gustav shows up.  Even emergency personnel – if you’re dumb enough to stay, you are on your own.

Except, according to the BBC, fewer than 50 city employees will remain.  What could possibly be important enough to require somebody to hang around while the city gets hit by a Cat 5 hurricane?  And what could they possibly do, except not die, if they’re lucky?  Seriously, I want to know.

Updates:

  • Might hit 2am Monday, a cat4

  • Cajun updates the preparations that his company (think energy infrastructure) are making.  This makes for very interesting reading when you consider the amount of industry in the Gulf.  And in his updates #2 he discusses the difficult logic of evacuation.  In Sunday Evening update #6 he says the storm has veered West and will hit a marshland area “containing mostly frogsh*t and seeweed”, but also a lot of oil infrastructure that was “built with hurricanes in mind”.  But power will probably be out for a week so “expect a bump a bump at the pump”.

 

  1. August 31, 2008 at 00:06 | #1

    I wonder, too.

    We spent a couple of days in Galveston a few weeks ago. I’m really glad we timed our visit between hurricanes.

  2. August 31, 2008 at 08:21 | #2

    The good news is Gustav might slow down to a Category 4… shit!

  3. Lucas
    August 31, 2008 at 19:21 | #3

    Wikipedia says that Gustav means “staff of the gods.”  Seems appropriate.  Of course some more accurate naming might be appropriate if hurricanes keep destroying New Orleans.

    Based on news reports, the evacuation of New Orleans seems to be going smoothly.  I wonder how all this will play in the presidential election.  Gustav will probably have a much lower death toll than Katrina (making the current administration look good), but it might remind people of 2005 and the Bush administration’s failure then.

  4. August 31, 2008 at 19:38 | #4

    Greg Laden has an analysis of Gustav vs. Katrina as of a few hours ago.  A bad outcome is by no means certain.  New Orleans may dodge this bullet.

    That of course would completely exonerate the Republicans from eight years of incompetence, cronyism, corruption, and Dick Cheney, I guess.

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