Gustav - Wed. morning update

Overnight, Gustav has stalled out over the mountains of Haiti - where there is likely a living watery hell taking place for many people there - the most vulnerable country in the Western Hemisphere to hurricanes. Flooding and mudslides have been reported, and we won't know until a few days how bad it is - the ground is already saturated from Fay's rains last week, and it won't take much for deforested hillsides to give way in the hills and slums outside of Port-au-Prince.

Also overnight, many of the previously outlying computer models have converged on a path taking Gustav to Louisiana early next week. This increases the confidence of the forecast I put up yesterday - a major hurricane making landfall - probably in the south central Louisiana coast (Lake Charles to Grand Isle?) on Monday or Tuesday. The time to prepare is now.



I'm at JFK right now heading down to New Orleans for a quick (pre-planned) trip - which I feel is going to turn into 72-hours of hurricane preparations. I'll keep you updated.