Southern US braces for hurricane
NEW ORLEANS: Tropical Storm Gordon whipped the southern tip of Florida with high winds and rain yesterday, and was expected to make landfall as a hurricane along the central United States Gulf Coast tonight, the National Hurricane Centre said.
The storm was forecast to come ashore today near the border between Louisiana and Mississippi, and drop as much as 20cm of rain in some areas of the US South still reeling from hurricanes a year ago.
Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards declared a state of emergency, saying 200 Louisi
ana National Guardsmen were being deployed, along with 63 highwater trucks, 39 boats and four helicopters.
The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency warned of storm surges of 1m1.5m and told South Mississippi residents to be prepared to evacuate.
Gordon was generating winds of 80kmh yesterday as it steamed westnorthwest at 27kmh, the National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said.
Gordon was about 530km eastsoutheast of the mouth of the Mississippi River with maximum sustained winds of 95kmh, the Miamibased weather forecaster said.
Yesterday afternoon the storm had passed over Florida’s southern tip and there were no reports of any injuries or deaths or any damages to buildings.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell declared a state of emergency for her city, closing all nonessential government offices today.
Last year, powerful hurricanes walloped Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, causing thousands of deaths, hundreds of billions of dollars worth of damage, massive power outages and devastation to hundreds of thousands of structures.
At the mouth of the Mississippi River, around the area of New Orleans, the storm could generate a surge of up to 1.2m and smaller surges could hit coastland along other parts of the Gulf Coast, the Miamibased National Hurricane Centre said.
US oil producer Anadarko Petroleum Corp yesterday evacuated workers and shut production at two offshore oil platforms, and other companies with production and refining operations along the Gulf Coast said they were securing facilities.
The US Coast Guard warned the ports of New Orleans as well as Gulfport and Pascagoula, Mississippi, might have to close within 48 hours when gale force winds from Gordon were expected to arrive.