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USA damn good every year kenna humtum many times still top dog in the world

madmansg

Alfrescian
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NEW ORLEANS: The United States kept a close eye yesterday on another hurricane and a new tropical storm that emerged in the Atlantic, even as Gustav was downgraded to a depression over western Louisiana.

US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said preparations were already under way as Hurricane Hanna lashed the Turks and Caicos Islands, with a forecast that it would head towards the US East Coast.

Tropical Storm Ike, meanwhile, formed further east in the Atlantic.

'It's a little early to tell where Ike is going to go, but we clearly have to be getting ready for Hanna and we're working with the states in the potential target area to make sure they're getting ready to do what they have to do,' Mr Chertoff told CNN.

Hanna was a Category One storm - the weakest on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale - blowing winds of 130kmh, according to the US National Hurricane Centre. Hanna was expected to produce 10cm to 20cm of rain over the central and south-eastern Bahamas and Turks and Caicos, with isolated maximums of 30cm, it said.

Ike, the ninth tropical storm of this year's hurricane season, was further out to sea, 2,250km east of the Leeward Islands, packing winds of near 85kmh, the hurricane centre said. The storm could become a hurricane within these two days, it said.

Meanwhile, Gustav spared New Orleans the devastation wrought three years ago by Katrina, but left it without electricity, toppled trees and tore roofs. The city's flood defences remained intact and the death toll may have been kept to single figures, officials said.

Katrina had flooded 80 per cent of the city and killed 1,800 people.

'We had everything coordinated. We had a good plan,' New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said on CNN on Monday. Officials are 'getting the city ready to receive its citizens again'.

Some 1.9 million people fled Louisiana's coastal areas as the authorities, stung by criticism of their handling of Katrina, undertook the biggest evacuation in the state's history.

Emergency workers stacked sandbags late and prevented a storm surge from overwhelming a levee south of New Orleans.

'We have stopped the bleeding,' Mr Billy Nungesser, president of Plaquemines Parish, about 88km from New Orleans, said in a statement. 'So far, no homes have flooded.'

An unmanned Predator drone and a helicopter with night-vision equipment will survey the area's flood barriers, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said.

The storm killed more than 70 people in the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica as it passed over the Caribbean.

In the US, seven deaths were being blamed on the storm so far, Mr Jindal said, adding that the toll may rise.

BLOOMBERG, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
 
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