New Orleans is under severe hurricane warnings as Isaac threatens to hit the Gulf Coast on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina… Let’s hope that New Orleans learned their lesson to not take warning signals to lightly. Click below for more information regarding the hurricane.
Tropical Storm Isaac is on course to hammer New Orleans on the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the calamitous storm that ravaged the city with doomsday devastation.
Weather forecasters were getting more and more worried as Isaac picked up speed Sunday through the Florida Keys and aimed its deadly eye on the Crescent City.
The National Weather Service is predicting Isaac will make landfall near New Orleans late Tuesday or early Wednesday as a Category 2 hurricane, packing sustained winds of 105 mph.
While relieved the Republican National Convention in Tampa will likely dodge a direct hit, party bosses were grappling with a hypothetical political hazard spawned by the advancing storm.
GOPers fear the nightmarish scenario of christening Mitt Romney their presidential nominee as news networks break away from convention coverage to report on Gulf of Mexico storm victims suffering 650 miles to the west.
“You don’t want to be having hoopla and dancing when you have the nation focused on tragedy and suffering,†said Al Hoffman, a Republican from West Palm Beach, Fla., and former finance chairman of the Republican National Committee.
The Katrina disaster was compounded by the ineptitude of the federal response, which haunted the most recent Republican administration, and has left the GOP sensitive to the unwanted legacy. Katrina was a Category 3 storm when it struck New Orleans on Aug. 29, 2005, killing 1,836 people, breaching 53 different levees and causing $81.2 billion in damage. President George W. Bush and his director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Michael Brown, were vilified for the slow-footed federal response to Katrina.
In 2008, wary of the Katrina fallout, the Republicans delayed the start of their convention in St. Paul, Minn. because of Hurricane Gustav in the Gulf, some 1,200 miles away.
“We’re obviously monitoring what is going on with the weather. Our concern is with those people in the path of the storm,†Russ Schriefer, Romney’s chief planner, said Sunday.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who was scheduled to speak Tuesday at the convention, vowed Sunday not to leave his state as long as it’s under threat. “We are encouraging everyone to get prepared now to ensure that you have an evacuation plan in place,†Jindal told locals, declaring a state of emergency for the parishes of New Orleans.
