2 Million Flee Storm; G.O.P. Cuts Back

(From NY TIMES)
Nearly two million people from Texas to Alabama fled the Gulf Coast on Sunday ahead of Hurricane Gustav, anticipating a storm that could rival Hurricane Katrina in its destructive power.

New Orleans was largely emptied of its residents after a mandatory evacuation order, and interstate highways across the region were jammed bumper to bumper in one of the largest evacuations in American history.

With memories of the shaky response to Hurricane Katrina fresh, officials from President Bush on down were on high alert; Mr. Bush himself described the preparations and warned residents to get out of the storm’s way.

Kızılay, Gürcistan’a giren ilk insani yardım kuruluşu

Türk Kızılayı Genel Başkanı Tekin Küçükali, ”Gürcistan’a giren ilk insani yardım kuruluşu Türk Kızılayı’dır” dedi.

Küçükali, Yalova Valisi Yusuf Erbay’ı ziyaretinde, dünyada doğal ve insan kaynaklı olmak üzere 2 tür afet bulunduğunu, birkaç gündür Kafkaslarda yaşananların insan kaynaklı bir afet olduğunu söyledi.

Sivil, korunmasız insanların da burada zarar gördüklerine dikkati çeken Küçükali, şu bilgileri verdi:

Küba’da büyük felaket

En tehlikeli fırtına sınıfına giren Gustav kasırgası 240 bin kişiyi evinden etti.

Saatte 255 km’ye çıkan fırtınalanıyla ”Gustav” kasırgası yüzünden Küba’nın fırtınada korunaklı kalan bölgelerinden 240 bin kişi tahliye edildi.ABD meteoroloji merkezine göre, ‘Tehlikeli 4. Kategori”den de çıkarak ”en tehlikeli 5. Kategori”ye giren Gustav, Küba’nın batı kısmını vurdu. Adanın güneydoğusunda Amerikan Guantanamo Körfezi askeri üssü de doğal olarak ”korunaklı” alanlardan biri olarak kaldı.

Bihar floods: Army waits for orders to step in

Army needs orders to move and these have hardly been issued for infantry, engineers and allied battalions under the Lucknow-based Central Command for assisting in rescue, relief and rehabilitation work in the Kosi-ravaged east Bihar districts.

This, despite PM Manmohan Singh declaring the devastation unleashed by the river, menacingly flowing on a new course now, to be a “national calamity”. The response is still largely “local”, as far as the mobilization of the army goes because so far, only five columns — roughly 300 men — have been moved to the region.

FEMA says Gustav soon to be rated Category 5

The government’s disaster relief chief says Hurricane Gustav is growing into a monster Category 5 storm.

The storm that hit Cuba Saturday could reach landfall along the U.S. Gulf Coast as early as Monday afternoon.

Federal Emergency Management Agency chief David Paulison told reporters several times at a briefing Saturday that the storm was strengthening into a Category 5 hurricane. Gustav was a highly dangerous Category 4 storm Saturday afternoon.

SODES Projesi başlıyor

GAP Eylem Planı kapsamında başlatılan Sosyal Destek Programı (SODES), 1 Eylül tarihinde start alıyor.

Proje ile kırsalda yaşayan vatandaşların hayat ve refah seviyesinin yükseltilmesi için kırsal kalkınma hamlesi uyguladıklarını belirten Vali Kızılcık, şunları söyledi; “Bölge valileriyle birlikte Ankara’da GAP Eylem Planının daha etkin olması için toplantı yaptık. 1 Eylül’den itibaren SODES Projesi başlayacak. Temel ihtiyaçları karşılama, köyün diğer ihtiyaçlarından kanalizasyon ve diğer ihtiyaçlarını karşılanması için faaliyet başlattık.

Kaine Activates EMAC for Gustav

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has activated the Emergency Management Assistance Compact to help states on the Gulf Coast prepare for and respond to the potential impacts of Hurricane Gustav. EMAC is a national interstate mutual aid agreement that enables states to share resources during times of disaster.

“We are working with the Gulf States now to determine how we can help them and what resources we can send,” says Kaine. “Other states helped us respond to Hurricane Isabel, and Virginia stands ready to assist those in the path of this storm.”

Bush Issues Emergency Declaration for Louisiana, Texas

President Bush today declared a state of emergency for Louisiana and Texas, as former tropical storm Gustav strengthened to become a hurricane and continued on a collision course with the U.S. Gulf Coast.

The president’s declaration came three years to the day after Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississippi, overwhelming levees designed to protect New Orleans and inflicting record damage on the region.

The U.S. Hurricane Center in Miami said that as of mid-afternoon, Gustav had top sustained winds of about 75 miles per hour and was on course to move to the Cayman Islands and Cuba. Nearly 70 people have died from the storm in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

India’s Floods: a Manmade Disaster?

There was one thing different about this year’s monsoon in India. As in so many seasons past, the annual rains began in June, flooding streets and villages and claiming dozens of lives. But when the Kosi River burst its banks on Aug. 18 in the northeastern state of Bihar, the destruction was much worse than anyone expected. “It is not a normal flood, but a catastrophe,” Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar told reporters after flying over the affected areas.

After the river breached, it headed south and soon flooded the villages in its path. More than 2.1 million people in the worst-hit parts of Bihar are not only homeless but stranded, and 55 have been killed as the floods washed out the roads and railroad lines that connected residents to the rest of the country. “We can’t reach there,” says Dinesh Kumar Mishra, a civil engineer and head of the non-profit group Barh Mukti Abhiyan (Freedom from Floods Campaign), who spoke to TIME from northern Bihar, where he trying to organize relief efforts. “They are trapped.” Mishra, who has been tracking monsoon floods for more than 20 years, says this year’s flooding in Bihar is worse than previous years. “It is concentrated in a capsule form in one particular area,” he says. Other monsoons may have killed or displaced more people, but the destruction was spread out over a larger territory.

A fearful New Orleans prepares for a potential Hurricane Gustav

Fear and foreboding gripped this still-mending city Thursday as a potential Category 3 hurricane whirled toward the Gulf Coast on the eve of Hurricane Katrina’s three-year anniversary.

Tropical Storm Gustav, which was lashing Jamaica after Haitian officials said it had killed 51 people there, was still almost five days away from the Crescent City, according to the National Hurricane Center. Projections varied greatly, putting its path anywhere from the Florida panhandle to southeastern Texas by Tuesday.

But Louisiana seemed the most likely place for Gustav to make landfall, and politicians here were acting decisively to prepare for the worst — a sharp contrast from the response to Katrina, which was widely criticized as disorganized and sluggish. New Orleans avoided a direct hit from Katrina on Aug. 29, 2005, but flooding after it came ashore led to levee breaks that inundated four-fifths of the city, killing more than 1,500 people in Louisiana.