Nearly Two Million Flee Gulf Coast as Hurricane Gustav Approaches

Nearly two million people have evacuated their homes as Hurricane Gustav heads towards the Gulf Coast. The Category three storm is expected to make landfall by midday today with winds at 115 miles per hour. The evacuations come just days after New Orleans marked the three-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which killed more than sixteen-hundred people after also making landfall as a Category Three storm. Gustav has already claimed nearly one-hundred lives as it tore through the Caribbean. On Saturday, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin announced the mandatory evacuation.

Most residents have fled from coastal Louisiana and New Orleans, but tens of thousands have also left coastal Mississippi, Alabama and southeastern Texas. Hurricane Gustav has also jeopardized this week’s Republican National Convention here in St. Paul. Republican officials are already scaling back the RNC program. The Bush administration drew widespread criticism for its response to Katrina three years ago. Republican candidate John McCain said today’s agenda will only include essential formalities.

President Bush says he won’t attend the convention at all and will instead head to Texas.

Republicans have even floated the idea of canceling the convention altogether. On Sunday I asked McCain campaign manager Rick Davis about the convention plans at a news conference here in St. Paul.

Jordan Flaherty is a New Orleans-based independent journalist and an editor of Left Turn Magazine. He was the first writer to bring the story of the Jena Six to a national audience and his reporting on post-Katrina New Orleans has been widely published and broadcast. He is one of an estimated ten thousand people believed to still remain in the city following the evacuation order. Jordan Flaherty joins me now on the line from New Orleans.

Jordan Flaherty, New Orleans-based independent journalist and an editor of Left Turn Magazine. He was the first writer to bring the story of the Jena Six to a national audience and his reporting on post-Katrina New Orleans has been widely published and broadcast.

Related Links

• GustavSolidarity.org

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