Telecom carriers brace for Gustav

Hurricane Gustav bears down on Cuba on Saturday evening local time.

(Credit: NOAA)

With Hurricane Gustav headed straight toward New Orleans, emergency officials and telecommunication companies are preparing for the worst.

Gustav's winds had reached 150mph as of midday Saturday, making it a dangerous Category 4 hurricane, according to the National Hurricane Center. The NHC predicted that Gustav could reach Category 5--the highest level possible.

Gustav is pounding Cuba right now. It is expected to reach the Gulf Coast on Monday afternoon.

On Saturday, the NHC began trying out Gustav updates via podcast. The NHC is also making a PDA/smartphone-friendly version of its site available.

According to the Associated Press, the nation's wireless carriers have been preparing for such a storm since Katrina, which devastated their networks and left trapped residents without communications.

On Friday, the AP said, Sprint Nextel's emergency response team was heading down to the Gulf Coast in a caravan of trucks that can act as cell towers. Meanwhile, the wire service said, Verizon Wireless has spent $137 million over the past year to beef up its network in the Gulf Coast. And AT&T, the main landline provider in the region, has added capacity, replaced some cables with waterproof ones, and replaced copper wiring, which can short out when wet, with optical fiber.

Verizon told the AP that all of its cell sites in the region now have batteries to power them for at least eight hours. Many also have generators with fuel for up to seven days. AT&T's cell sites in the area have generators that last up to 36 hours, the AP reported, and Sprint installed generators at 1,300 cell sites in the Southeast last year.

On Friday, New Orleans marked the third anniversary of Katrina. That hurricane, a Category 5 storm that shrank to a Category 3 by the time it reached the Gulf Coast, killed between 1,500 and 1,600 people. Katrina also caused $80 billion in damage, making it the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, according to Reuters.

Although mandatory evacuations have not yet been ordered in New Orleans, thousands of residents were getting out Saturday.

During his Road Trip 2008, CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman visited New Orleans this summer, viewing the work to rebuild the city's levees and its housing.

Hurricane Gustav is being closely followed by Tropical Storm Hanna.

(Credit: NOAA)

[The_Decider]

The caption that it is bearing down on Cuba is wrong. Unless you guys flunked geography or don't understand the structure of a hurricane graphic.

I hope Key West is fairing well. I miss living there!

[dfwgreg]

As someone that is in New Orleans and have left upriver to Baton Rouge, I can tell you that this will be extremely worse than Katrina. New Orleans is expecting 25 - 30ft storm surge and this will affect the entire metropolitan area (Orleans, Jefferson, St. Charles, Lafourche, Terribone, etc). In simple terms, what Katrina and Rita did not finish, Gustav will. Please pray for us!

[Constable Odo]

Let's all get together and wish that the hurricane diminishes in strength or misses New Orleans entirely. Many are just starting to recover from Katrina and it's not right they have to suffer again almost three years from the date. Katrina hit land as a category 5 and maybe Gustav will only be a 3 or barely a four. There may be less of an effect although they said the storm surge could still be 20 to 25 feet in height. The newly strengthened levees should hold and the city's pumps have been modified to continue running while partially underwater. New Orleans should have a much better chance this time.

[The_Decider]

Katrina was a category 3. If Gustav makes it to cat 5, this could spell the end for NO.

[natalieweinstein]

The satellite imagery does show the eye of the hurricane over the western tip of Cuba on Saturday evening local time.

[GuyBlaise]

The people of Louisiana learned a lesson from Hurricane Katrina. It is certainly wiser for people to evacuate the state before hurricane Gustav hits the state. Hurricane Katrina still a very traumatic event for the people of New Orleans. Hopefully the same mistakes will not be repeated. As the Batekes of Gabon say, "Someone who had a wound in the mouth knows that blood is salty."
http://guyblaise.com/

[toby567]

We have about just gotten done cleanning up New Orleans and now we will have to go back to there and texas and Louisianna. They all have had to leave and go to a new state to be safe. It is just really too Bad for those people. I fell bad for them.

[kelseyleann]

I think that some one should make a device that stops hurricanes by making the wind stop. the device should spin in the opposite direction of the wind in the hurricane. its just like in a pool you make the water go one way then try to swim the other way and stop it.

[ladybird-bb]

That would be nice ... to redirect the wind! Perhaps we can redirect global warming to another planet and redirect HIV to the aliens too. Or we could realise that nature is giving humanity a strong push to correct our human nature. With blows like Katrina and Gustav soon after, nature is warning us, in not so subtle ways, that humanity is headed down a dangerous road.

What is the purpose of all this suffering and do we as humans have the capacity to stop it? Is deforestation and consequent global warming really the cause of the suffering we experience today? Or is there a silent culprit lurking in the shadows?

Is there a root cause to this suffering? If so, can we do anything about it or are we to stay at the mercy of this bleak future nature is forecasting? This link provides an insightful video which deals with this dilemma and offers an opportunity to do something real ... to correct our nature!

http://www.kabbalah.info/course/crisis/

[obsh]

hope everything is o.k
http://www.kabbalah-source.com