Atlantic States' Emergency Crews Brace for Hanna

September 6, 2008

MYRTLE BEACH, SC (AP) - After striking the mid-Atlantic states, Hanna is expected to race up the Eastern seaboard and deliver as much as 10 inches of rain Sunday in New York and New Jersey.

State and local emergency managers, who recall the flooding on the Delaware River in New Jersey and Pennsylvania that came after Hurricane Ivan in 2004, rushed to prepare.

In Cape May, N.J., public-works crews scrambled Friday to dump sand on local beaches to prevent erosion. Hanna was forecast to hit the New Jersey coast at high tide, making flooding and storm surges more likely, said Lenora Boninfante, a Cape May County spokeswoman.

In Nassau County, N.Y., crews cleared catch basins and storm drains, and emergency managers were expecting power outages.

"We haven't had a good windstorm go through in a while, so many of the trees that are weak have a good chance of going down," said James Callahan, the county's emergency-management commissioner. The lingering effects of Hurricane Gustav, meanwhile, continued bedeviling hundreds of thousands of residents who were without power and short of necessities. An estimated 650,000 people in Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas were without electricity Friday, four days after the storm crashed into coastal Louisiana.

In Baton Rouge, Louisiana's capital, hundred-year-old oak trees were toppled by Gustav, along with major portions of the region's electric-transmission grid. Full restoration of power is four to six weeks away, according to Entergy Corp. and other utilities.

Caribbean nations were grappling with the consequences of three tropical storms and hurricanes in the past three weeks. The hardest hit has been Haiti, where Hanna caused floods that claimed 137 lives, according to the government. Hurricane Gustav killed an additional 75 people, and Tropical Storm Fay killed more than 50.

Adding to concerns was Ike, a Category 3 storm packing 120 mile-per-hour winds. After passing through the Caribbean, Ike is considered likely either to hit south Florida next week or slip into the Gulf of Mexico and threaten points further to the west.

Haiti's northwestern city of Gonaives was the hardest hit by Hanna. Flooding engulfed much of the city, leaving as many as 50,000 people in shelters without food or water. A ship ferrying U.N. relief supplies arrived Friday, and officials also were hoping for U.S. aid to arrive.

Cuba was hard hit by Gustav but spared fatalities. The government said the storm caused billions of dollars in damage, mostly in the western province of Pinar del Rio. The U.S. government said it would provide aid to Cuba if it went through humanitarian groups.

In Louisiana, business in New Orleans began reopening. But across much of the state, progress was slow. Generators and gasoline were rare commodities. At one Wal-Mart store in Baton Rouge, more than 200 people on foot waited with gas cans in line at a pump designated for walk-up traffic. A line of 127 cars snaked through the parking lot and down the boulevard for a quarter mile.

Ike will likely hit southeast Florida early next week unless the storm makes a "drastic change" in direction within the next few days, says Dennis Feltgen, spokesman for the National Hurricane Center and meteorologist. He says the storm will likely be a Category 3 storm or higher. "Florida is going to be impacted," he says.

FEMA has positioned medical-response teams, urban search-and-rescue teams, water, food and communications equipment just outside the area Hanna is likely to hit.

After Hanna passes, FEMA officials said they will begin shifting unneeded supplies designated for Hanna to preparations for Ike. FEMA planners are readjusting their logistics plans every six hours based on changes in the storm's path.