That headline is lifted from Drudge. Needless to say, he left out “… and on the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, where both Bush and McCain were AWOL” (see TP’s “As Katrina hit, McCain celebrated 69th birthday with Bush”).
Track the storm with the National Hurricane Center here. Best hurricane blog here.
Readers of this blog know that my brother lost his home in Katrina three years ago, which is probably the main reason I began this blog in the first place (see “100 Katrinas and the Launch of Climate Progress”).
Let’s all hope that long-suffering New Orleans does not get hit again and that no major hurricane makes landfall. That said, perhaps many more lives can be saved if the nation is reminded how incompetent the conservatives are at managing government — how they failed to protect our citizens, how they didn’t bring leadership to rebuilding the city, and how they still haven’t built levees strong enough to protect the city from a major hurricane.
The other reason Gustav may make headlines is that on the current storm track we may see a Category Three storm or larger hit the Gulf oilfields, a fact that has already begun to impact oil prices:
U.S. crude oil futures rose as high as $117.89 a barrel earlier on Tuesday and settled up $1.16 at $116.27. Gasoline RBU8 gained 9 cents in trade on Tuesday.
“There’s the possibility of a Category 3 to Category 5 hurricane in the Gulf on Sunday … that’s what has everyone’s attention right now. If we get a major hurricane in the Gulf there’s going to be a lot more short covering,” said Commercial Brokerage Corp’s Ed Kennedy….
“All of the oil platforms off Texas and Louisiana will probably be at risk, but that’s real long-range,” AccuWeather senior meteorologist Eric Wilhelm said in a telephone interview….
“The entire Gulf energy infrastructure is now threatened,” wrote Jim Rouiller of forecaster Planalytics, who said two major hurricane forecasting models predicted the storm making landfall somewhere between Houston and New Orleans, which is home to nearly half of U.S. oil refining capacity.
That potentially means yet another major news story — oil spills. And while obviously nobody wishes for that, if the worst were to happen, it might at least make it harder for the GOP to keep lying about what happened three years ago (see “McCain Falsely Claims Katrina And Rita Did Not Cause Significant Oil Spillage”).