Genie Collins
AMERICUS — hile Hurricane Gustav barreled into the Gulf Coast this weekend, Americus and Sumter County probably saw no more than the occasion afternoon thunderstorm.
As of 5 p.m. Monday, The Weather Channel Website, www.weather.com, put rain chances between 20 and 30 percent until Tuesday, Sept. 9, when there will be a 60 percent chance of scattered thunderstorms with a high of 84 and a low of 68. Wednesday, Sept. 10 will also see a 60 percent chance of scattered thunderstorms with a high of 83 and a low of 68.
Now, Hurricane Hanna has slowly organized over the last few days, becoming a hurricane Monday afternoon.
The National Hurricane Center has Hanna coming ashore as a minimal hurricane Friday near Savannah, Ga., but forecasters warned the track could swing as far south as Miami or as far north as North Carolina’s Outer Banks.
Savannah and nearby Hilton Head Island haven’t been hit directly by a hurricane since 1893, when the Sea Islands Hurricane killed anywhere from 1,000 to 2,500 people.
The Georgia Emergency Management Agency planned to begin staffing its operations center around the clock Tuesday morning, spokeswoman Kandice Eldon said.
The center brings together officials from state and federal government and organizations like the Red Cross to plan for disaster response, she said.
Hurricane Gustav slammed into the heart of Louisiana’s fishing and oil industry with 110 mph winds Monday, delivering only a glancing blow to New Orleans that raised hopes the city would escape the kind of catastrophic flooding brought by Katrina three years ago.
Wind-driven water sloshed over the top of the Industrial Canal’s floodwall, but city officials and the Army Corps of Engineers said they expected the levees, still only partially rebuilt after Katrina, would hold. Flood protections along the canal broke with disastrous effect during Katrina, submerging St. Bernard Parish and the Lower Ninth Ward.
In the Upper Ninth Ward, about half the streets closest to the canal were flooded with ankle- to knee-deep water as the road dipped and rose. Of more immediate concern to authorities were two small vessels that broke loose from their moorings in the canal and were resting against the Florida Street wharf.
By mid afternoon Monday, the rain had stopped in the French Quarter, the highest point in the city. The wind was breezy but not fierce, and some of the approximately 10,000 people who chose to defy warnings and stay behind began to emerge.
But knowing that the levees surrounding the city could still be pressured by rising waters, no one was celebrating just yet.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
