Storm Chris Weakens, Still Seen Becoming Hurricane
Date: 03-Aug-06
Country: US
Author: Michael Christie
The Bahamas issued a hurricane watch for the Turks and Caicos islands and for the southeastern Bahamas, meaning hurricane conditions could be expected within 36 hours, the US National Hurricane Center said.
The storm's forecast path, although subject to considerable uncertainty, could take it into the Gulf early on Monday and potentially again threaten New Orleans, the fabled home of jazz that was decimated when Katrina broke its protective levees.
Maximum sustained winds of the third tropical cyclone of 2006 dropped to 60 miles per hour (95 km per hour), from 65 mph (100 kph) by 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT), as the storm took a track tha would take it north of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
Nazario Lugo, director of the Puerto Rico State Emergency Management Agency, said the storm's strongest gusts should not reach land.
"The real danger has passed us," Lugo told reporters in the US territory, where 420 emergency shelters were put on alert and visits by four cruise ships were canceled.
Experts have predicted this year could see another active Atlantic hurricane season with several major storms though nothing like the record number seen in 2005.
The Miami-based hurricane center said in a bulletin that Chris had become a little more disorganized, and it could take a little longer to strengthen into a hurricane than earlier thought. Tropical storms becomes hurricanes once their sustained winds reach 74 mph (119 kph).
Oil and natural gas prices rose on the threat to drilling platforms and exploration rigs in the Gulf, where the waters are especially warm -- as they were last year when they fueled Hurricanes Katrina and Rita before they slammed into the Louisiana and Texas coastlines.
Last year's hurricanes shut a quarter of US crude output and sent oil prices to record highs.
"The current forecast track has the storm on a path not that dissimilar to last year's Hurricane Katrina," said Tim Evans, an energy analyst at Citigroup.
In New Orleans, which was flooded by Katrina at the end of August 2005, residents cast a wary eye toward Chris and put the final touches on an evacuation plan that could empty the city.
"I'm scared to go through another one," said forklift driver Inos Jones, 50, who stayed through Katrina until he was rescued. "If they have another hurricane, you can just shut Louisiana for good."
The storm was located 115 miles (180 km) north-northeast of St. Thomas by late afternoon, the hurricane center said, and it was moving west-northwest at 10 mph (17 kph).
Forecasters have predicted up to 17 tropical storms and hurricanes this year. Last year saw a record 28, including Katrina, the costliest natural disaster in US history. Katrina killed more than 1,300 people.
(Additional reporting by Gelu Sulugiuc in New York, Peter Henderson in New Orleans and Enrique Martel in San Juan)
