Slowing-moving tropical storm Isaac closed in on the US Gulf Coast yesterday and was expected to make landfall as a full-blown hurricane in the New Orleans area, seven years after the city was devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
Isaac’s winds, rain and storm surge could pose a major test of New Orleans’s new flood control systems and reinforced levees. Forecasts from the US National Hurricane Centre showed the storm coming ashore early this morning.
Energy companies evacuated offshore oil rigs and shut down US Gulf Coast refineries as the storm threatened to batter the oil refining belt.
As markets mulled Isaac’s potential to tighten fuel supplies, prices for international benchmark Brent crude were up 46 cents to $112.72 (€89.60) a barrel early yesterday.
“Isaac is expected to become a hurricane before making landfall,” the centre said in its 5 p.m. advisory. “The Centre of Isaac should reach the coastline of south-eastern Louisiana as early as this evening.”
Isaac was centred 125 kilometres southeast of New Orleans and the mouth of the Mississippi River, with top sustained winds of 110 kilometres per hour, just short of the 119 kph hurricane status.
Its forward speed was a relatively slow 17 kph, a red flag for hurricane and tropical storm experts since slow-moving cyclones can bring higher rainfall totals.
The storm was about 595 kilometres wide.
Isaac spared Tampa, Florida, where the Republican National Convention began on Monday. But it forced party leaders to revamp their schedule and they may have to make further revisions so as not to be seen celebrating Mitt Romney winning the party’s presidential nomination while Gulf Coast residents are struggling through the storm.
President Barack Obama added his concerns in a statement from the White House, saying: “We’re dealing with a big storm and there could be significant flooding and other damage across a large area.Now is not the time to tempt fate.”
He added that people should heed warnings and evacuate buildings if instructed by authorities to do so.