HANNA CHURNING UP AS WELL AS GUSTAV

STORMS HURRICANES-TORNADOES

LUKE 21:25-26
25 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity;(MASS CONFUSION) the sea and the waves roaring;(FIERCE WINDS)
26 Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.

HERES HURRICANE NUMBER 2 CHURNING UP HANNA.

Storm Hanna, off Florida, keeps experts guessing By Michael Christie AUG 31,08

MIAMI (Reuters) - While powerful Hurricane Gustav bore down on the U.S. Gulf Coast on Sunday, Tropical Storm Hanna swirled east of Florida, embedded in a complicated climatic environment that made it impossible to forecast its destination and likely strength. The eighth tropical storm of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season could just as easily end up over Cuba, bring heavy rainfall to citrus country in central Florida or drift northward toward South Carolina. It was not possible to say if the storm might eventually end up in the U.S. oil patch in the Gulf of Mexico, hurricane experts said.Unfortunately there is still considerable uncertainty with the forecast, said Jamie Rhome, a hurricane specialist at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. It's impossible to say that this system is going to do this or that.

The cyclone was tangled up in a middle to upper level low that was making it difficult for Hanna to develop, and was likely to slow down in two days when it came across conditions of weak steering current that could make it meander.Another trough would then swoop over the tropical storm, bringing with it considerable uncertainty as to the likely wind shear as Hanna drifted near the Bahamas. Wind shear -- the difference in wind speed at different levels of the atmosphere -- can tear storms apart.At the end of the forecast track the wind shear could let up a bit, Rhome said.

None of the computer models used to predict storm tracks actually took Hanna into the southeastern United States at this point, Rhome said.Some oil analysts reported on Friday that one of the myriad computer models available to forecasters had indicated that Hanna could eventually make landfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast near New Orleans where Hurricane Gustav was expected to come ashore on Monday as a dangerous storm.Those reports triggered concerns in energy markets of a potential one-two punch by Gustav and Hanna on some of the 4,000 Gulf of Mexico offshore platforms that provide a quarter of U.S. crude oil and 15 percent of its natural gas.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed more than 100 oil rigs in 2005 when they roared through, causing oil prices to soar to then record highs. Katrina went on to swamp New Orleans, kill 1,500 people on the U.S. Gulf Coast and cause $80 billion in damages.Rhome said it was folly to highlight a single computer model, especially so far out. It's a mistake, and often a grave one, to focus on a single model, he said.

The accuracy of hurricane forecasting has come a long way since the days when entire fleets of Spanish galleons sank in unexpected storms as they carried South American gold and treasure back to Europe.But even with the start of hurricane hunter flights in 1944 and the advent of satellite imagery in the 1960s, long-range forecasts are prone to enormous margins of error.The National Hurricane Center estimates the average error in its track forecasts is near 260 miles by day four and 345 miles by day five. The hurricane center does not project a storm's track beyond day five.

Intensity forecasts are even more difficult. The hurricane center calculates that the error in its forecasts for a storm's top sustained winds averages 23 miles per hour (37 km per hour) per day.The last official forecast for Hanna takes it in five days to minimal Category 1 hurricane strength with 80-mile-per-hour (130 km per hour) winds by next Friday.It might then be somewhere off central Florida. But its potential position at that point also encompasses the southern Bahamas, eastern Cuba, south Florida and South Carolina.(Editing by Tom Brown)

WELL WE EVEN HERE THE WORDS THE BIBLES SAYS WOULD BE SAID ABOUT THESE LAST DAYS STORMS.26 Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.

Gulf Coast braces, flees as deadly Gustav takes aim at US by Glenn Chapman AUG 31,08

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) - More than a million people fled Louisiana as killer Hurricane Gustav on Sunday churned toward New Orleans, a fragile US coastal city still healing from the devastating 2005 Katrina storm. Highways out of New Orleans have been crammed since before dawn as people scurried to escape a monster storm that could slam the Louisiana coast as early as midday Monday.The state's governor, Bobby Jindal, said that more than a million people are on the move because of Gustav.

Officials are carefully watching whether Gustav strengthens as it crosses the warm water of the Gulf of Mexico.A slightly weakened Gustav -- still a dangerous Category 3 storm with winds near 125 miles (205 kilometers) per hour -- battered Cuba Sunday after claiming at least 81 lives in its tear across the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica.New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, desperate to avoid a replay of the 2005 Katrina catastrophe, ordered the city emptied in the face of what he called the storm of the century and roads quickly filled with fleeing residents.Get out of town, Jefferson parish president Aaron Broussard said in a public announcement Sunday morning. Have the courage to disconnect yourself from your material things. You cannot protect yourself against what Mother Nature is going to throw at us.

Jefferson Parish includes the West Bank, where a storm surge of water pushed ashore by hurricane winds is expected to easily wash over levees guarding that area.Weather models indicate a surge could be more than 20 feet (almost three meters) high, double the height of levees on the West Bank.We are going to see storm surge on the West Bank like we have never seen before, said Jefferson parish councilman Chris Roberts. Now is the time to sound the alarm.In Cuba, Gustav tore off roofs, flattened buildings and plunged communities into darkness as it smashed through the Isle of Youth, then tore across mainland Cuba southwest of Havana, which has a population of more than two million. There were no immediate reported deaths in Cuba.

The storm lost some of its punch in the process, with US officials downgrading it from four to three.At 1200 GMT, the US National Hurricane Center said Gustav's eye was about 375 miles (605 km) southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River, as the storm moved northwest about 16 mph (26 km/h) and was expected to strengthen.On this track Gustav will be moving across the central Gulf of Mexico today (Sunday) and make landfall on the northern Gulf coast on Monday, the NHC added, warning an extremely dangerous storm surge of 18 to 25 feet (more than six meters) above normal tidal levels is expected near and to the east of where the center of Gustav crosses the northern Gulf Coast.President George W. Bush is unlikely to travel to the Republican Convention Monday as Hurricane Gustav closes in on the US Gulf Coast, the White House said in Washington. The Katrina catastrophe was a major political disaster for his administration.Republican White House hopeful John McCain and his running-mate Sarah Palin also said they would suspend their normal election campaign and visit to Mississippi to inspect preparations for Gustav's arrival.Major oil producers BP, ConocoPhillips and Shell on Thursday evacuated workers from their facilities in the Gulf where nearly a quarter of US crude oil installations are located.If one major deep-water production platform is destroyed, you're talking about a billion dollar or more loss, said Rice University engineering professor Satish Nagarajaiah. If it's multiple rigs and platforms in a variety of water depths, then we're talking billions of dollars.Cuban national television reported that the scene on the Isle of Youth was one of devastation after the monster storm ground its way across the low-lying island of fishing villages, factories and citrus farms. Homes were under water, warehouses toppled, and roads washed away on the Isle, state television said, adding there were some injuries though no immediate reports of deaths. More than 250,000 were evacuated from western parts of mainland Cuba before the storm hit, the Cuban weather service said. Used to fairly frequent smaller tropical storms, Havana residents ran around town Saturday gathering candles and food, boiling water and taping up windows. Really, I just did not expect this -- it has been a long time since we have been hit by such a powerful hurricane, and this Gustav looks like it will be quite strong, retired actress Gliseria Farinas said in Havana. A key concern was for the crowded and charming colonial-era Old Havana, which UNESCO declared a World Heritage Site in 1982. Most of Cuba's housing stock is old and fragile. Cuban authorities have said that in Havana alone there are 1,000 buildings in critical condition. These include about 8,000 structures housing some 26,000 people, many of them in Old Havana. Earlier Gustav's path of destruction left 66 dead and 10 missing in Haiti. In neighboring Dominican Republic, the death toll stood at eight, while in Jamaica the toll stood at seven, with many thousands displaced. Gustav loomed just after the third anniversary of Katrina, the deadliest US natural disaster in almost eight decades. More than 1,800 people were killed by the hurricane and related flooding, authorities say.

Powerful Gustav rips across Cuba, 250,000 evacuate By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer AUG 31,08

HAVANA - Cubans returned from shelters to find flooded homes and washed-out roads Sunday, but no deaths were reported after a monstrous Hurricane Gustav roared across the island and into the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico. About 250,000 Cubans were evacuated before Gustav made landfall on Cuba's Isla de la Juventud, then again on the Cuban mainland in the region that produces much of the tobacco used to make the nation's famed cigars.It was just short of top-scale Category 5 hurricane with screaming 140 mph (220 kph) winds as it moved across the island, toppling telephone poles and fruit trees, shattering windows and tearing off the tin roofs of homes.A Cuban television reporter on the Isla de la Juventud said the storm had felt like the blast wave from a bomb.Buildings without windows, without doors, he said. Few trees remain standing.Cuban Civil defense chief Ana Isa Delgado said there were many people injured on the island of 87,000 people. Nearly all the island's roads were washed out and some regions were heavily flooded.It's been very difficult here, she said on state television.But there were no reports of deaths, there or on the mainland.Gustav earlier killed 81 people by triggering floods and landslides in Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica.The hurricane weakened slightly after crossing Cuba, slowing to Category 3 status before sunrise Sunday. But it still packed top winds near 120 mph (195 kph) and forecasters predicted it would increase to a Category 4 before making landfall Monday along the U.S. Gulf coast.

More than 1 million Americans made wary by Hurricane Katrina took buses, trains, planes and cars as they streamed out of New Orleans and other coastal cities, where Katrina killed about 1,600 people in 2005.Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans, which was devastated by Katrina, issued a mandatory evacuation order and warned that anyone found off their own property after it takes effect can be arrested. Police and National Guard troops were on the streets, preparing to patrol evacuated neighborhoods.Nagin called Gustav the mother of all storms and told residents to get out of town. This is not the one to play with.Cuba's top meteorologist, Jose Rubiera, said the storm brought hurricane-force winds to much of the western part of Havana, where power was knocked out as winds blasted sheets of rain sideways though the streets and whipped angry waves against the famed seaside Malecon boulevard.

But Sunday morning no flooding could be seen in central Havana, and state radio said the damage was minimal in the capital of 2 million people, although southeastern Havana remained without power and natural gas.Public transportation began running again Sunday morning, as did buses and trains from Havana to the provinces. State radio said schools would open Monday everywhere except Pinar del Rio.In the fishing town of Batabano, 31 miles (50 kilometers) south of Havana, evacuees returned to their pastel-colored homes to find many surrounded by knee-deep water.My house is full of water, said Aldo Tomas, 43, pulling palm branches from his living room. But we expected more. We expected worse.Tourist Lidia Morral of Barcelona, Spain, said Gustav forced officials to close beaches the couple wanted to visit earlier this week in Santiago, on the island's eastern tip. The storm also prevented them from catching a ferry from Havana to the Isla de la Juventud on Saturday. It's been following us all over Cuba, ruining our vacation, said Morral, who was in line at a travel agency, trying to make other plans. They have closed everything — hotels, restaurants, bars, museums. There's not much to do but wait.At 8 a.m. EDT Sunday, the U.S. hurricane center said Gustav was centered about 375 miles (605 kilometers) southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River and moving northwest near 16 mph (26 kph). Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Hanna was projected to move north of the Turks and Caicos Islands by late Sunday, then curl through the Bahamas by early next week before possibly threatening Cuba. As it spun over open waters, Hanna strengthened slightly and had sustained winds near 60 mph (95 kph) early Sunday. The hurricane center warned that it could kick up dangerous rip currents along parts of the southeastern U.S. coast.

Russia warns it will respond to aggression
By Christian Lowe AUG 31,08

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia does not want confrontation with the West but will hit back if attacked, Kremlin leader Dmitry Medvedev said on Sunday, a day before EU leaders meet to draft a response to Moscow's actions in Georgia.British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he would press fellow European Union leaders to review ties with Russia in retaliation for Moscow's decision to send troops to Georgia and recognize two Georgian breakaway regions.But underlining the differences in approach inside the 27-member EU, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier took a softer line, saying isolating Russia would harm the interests of the bloc.A senior U.S. diplomat said Washington hoped the EU would express concrete support for Georgia's territorial integrity, and urged Europe to reduce its dependence on Russian energy.Medvedev faces growing condemnation from the West, which accuses Russia of occupying parts of Georgia, while the Kremlin said it acted to prevent what it called genocide against the separatist regions.Russia does not want confrontation with any country. Russia does not plan to isolate itself, Medvedev said in an interview with Russia's three main television stations.But he added: Everyone should understand that if someone launches an aggressive sortie, he will receive a response. He said Russian law allowed the Kremlin to impose sanctions on other states, though it preferred not to go down that path.

GEORGIAN CALL

Georgia urged the European Union to impose sanctions against those doing business with the two separatist regions, authorize a civilian mission to monitor buffer zones around them and give Tbilisi about $2 billion to help to help repair damage.

Europe can do a lot, starting with sending a mission of civilian monitors, which would lead to an international peacekeeping mechanism that would replace the presence of Russian troops, Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze told Reuters in Brussels.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Russia's intervention in Georgia was dangerous and unacceptable.In the light of Russian actions, the EU should review -- root and branch -- our relationship with Russia, Brown wrote in a comment published in Britain's Observer newspaper.The German foreign minister said Moscow deserved criticism but Europe needed cooperation with Russia.Europe would only be hurting itself if we were to get full of emotion and slam all the doors shut to the rooms that we will want to enter afterwards, Steinmeier said.Russia supplies more than a quarter of Europe's gas needs. Some observers say this makes tough EU sanctions unlikely.Thousands of Georgians are expected to join a human chain in Tbilisi on Monday, with people joining hands through the capital in a show of unity.Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, in an address to the nation, said he hoped the EU leaders would not give up faced with this dirty attempt at aggression.

TEST OF UNITY

The emergency summit is a test of unity for the EU, which struggles to reconcile differences between states which want punitive action and others, including European heavyweights France and Germany, which favor a more calibrated approach.It is likely to produce a stern words-soft action response from the EU, said Chris Weafer, Chief Strategist with Russia's Uralsib investment bank.The bloc is likely to stop well short of any action that might escalate into a damaging tit-for-tat sequence of economic and political sanctions, Weafer wrote in a research note.Russia sent in its troops after Georgia's military tried to retake South Ossetia, like Abkhazia a Moscow-backed region which rejects Tbilisi's rule.Moscow has pulled out most of its forces in line with a ceasefire deal but has kept soldiers and equipment in security zones, which include undisputed Georgian territory around South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Western governments have demanded that Moscow pull its troops back to pre-conflict positions. The Kremlin says the troops are peacekeepers needed to protect the separatist regions from new Georgian aggression.In a last-minute round of diplomacy before Monday's emergency EU summit, both Medvedev and U.S. President George W. Bush spoke to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is seen as sympathetic to the Kremlin.U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza said it was up to the EU to decide what measures it adopts against Russia, but the bloc should throw its weight behind Georgia and make itself less dependent on Russian energy.What happened in Georgia shows even more why it is crucial that Europe begins to move more quickly to diversify its supply of gas, Bryza told Reuters on the sidelines of an international energy conference in Bled, Slovenia.(Reporting by Giles Elgood in London, Thomas Grove in Istanbul, Erik Kirschbaum in Berlin, Guy Faulconbridge and Conor Sweeney in Moscow, Marja Novak and Zoran Radosvljevic in Bled, Slovenia, Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington and Mark John and Marcin Grajewski in Brussels; editing by Philippa Fletcher).