DennisWashington's Blog

My adventures in the FOX6 StormTracker continued this afternoon as I made a visit by Jefferson Christian Academy in Irondale, where I talked weather with the kids in the elementary school.  Of course, the big hit was the FOX6 StormTracker... all of them paused for a pose below, or you can click on the video to see them cheering.  Thanks to Mrs. Baird and all of the great teachers there at JCA for the invitation (and the cake!)

Dennis

I got the chance to speak to the 3rd graders this morning at Odenville Intermediate School.  We had an awesome time talking about water, tornadoes, and checking out the FOX6 StormTracker.  There were so many kids, we had to split up into two groups.  Thanks to Mrs. Wilkinson for inviting me!

Below is pictures and video from the kids... the second group even sang for me a song about the Water Cycle!

While I was there, I took a picture of Joe Gable, the principal.  He was dressed up like a lion today after challenging his school kids to sell more than $4500 at the school's book fair.  The kids met and exceeded the challenge, raising about $6500 for the school library.  Mr. Gable said he was thrilled about dressing up like a lion today, because he knows the kids are more excited about reading, which is what really counts.  By the way, the lion costume was picked because the book fair was surrounded by a safari theme.  Way to go, kids!

Dennis






Video 1:  1st group of 3rd graders waving and cheering





Video 2:  2nd group of 3rd graders singing the Water Cycle song

Not much to talk about with our weather right now.  A northerly wind flow has ushered in some much cooler, drier air into the state of Alabama today.  You can feel the lower humidity when you walk outside.

That drier air will allow temperatures to fall into the 50s across much of the northern half of the state both tonight and tomorrow night and will help keep high temperatures in the low to mid 80s.

As far as rain goes, we should stay dry until the weekend, when a small disturbance brings scattered showers and thunderstorms to the state.  The weekend won't be a washout, but take the umbrella to dodge the rain every now and then.

Have a great day!

Dennis

I am happy to announce that we have new webcams!

Our engineers finished today installing three new webcams at the Birmingham Zoo.  The first one is located at the front gate, the second at the Children's Barn, and the third at the Kangaroo exhibit.

You can see all of them on our special webcam web page on MyFoxAL.com or by checking out the webcam section of MyFoxStorm.com.

Thanks, and enjoy!
Dennis

My photographer, Anthony, and I are headed back home to Birmingham.

We leave the Big Easy almost how we found it:  very quiet, very empty, and not too much damage.

I'm happy about that, and I'm happy that people heeded the warnings and evacuated.  One of my greatest frustrations and disappointments from Hurricane Katrina three years ago was how many people died after ignoring the pleas to get out.  This time, people got out, and I believe many lives were saved because of it.

To my new friends here in New Orleans and Louisiana: God bless you.  My heart goes out to you for how your lives have been uprooted this week by this storm.  I pray that your re-entry to Louisiana will happen soon so your can try to resume your daily routines.

Thanks to all who had to stay behind to keep the cities safe.  From what I saw, you did a great job.

Thanks to all of the leaders at all levels of government for the great job in planning and executing the evacuation plans.  From my vantage point, it looked flawless.

One final note: keep your eyes pointed southeastward.  What is now Tropical Storm Ike could be a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico by the first of next week.  Let's pray this storm stays away from the Gulf coast.

Goodbye, and good luck.

Dennis

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal held a news conference Tuesday morning where he announced details on how evacuees will be allowed to return to their homes.

Jindal said residents would be allowed to return on a tiered, or staged basis.

He said local leaders would announce details on timing, but he said he expected the return would begin in days, not weeks.

"We're not quite at halftime. There is a lot of work yet to be done."

Good morning from New Orleans, where light rain continues to fall and the city remains mostly empty and quiet.

The big story today: when will evacuees be allowed to return home.

The answer: not today.

Power is still out to at least half of Louisiana, and several areas still have lots of trees and powerlines down.  Authorities plan to cleanup as much as possible today once the threat of tornadoes comes to an end.

Details are expected to be announced later today as to when people will be allowed to return home.  Last night, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said it would be "days, not weeks."  Mayor Nagin also said anyone trying to re-enter today would be turned away.

Schools are closed here until Monday.

Jefferson and St. Tammany Parishes are also working with Mayor Nagin and Gov. Bobby Jindal to coordinate re-entry plans.

Jerry Sneed, the New Orleans director of homeland security, said he hopes by Thursday or Friday to get back the 18,000 city residents who used government-sponsored planes, buses, or trains to evacuate. Because the evacuation took 2 1/2 days, he said the return should be just as speedy.

Sneed said the plan is to return the 18,000 evacuees to the Amtrak station then have local buses drop them as close as possible to their homes.

Dennis

A sigh of relief can be heard across New Orleans tonight as the danger from Hurricane Gustav has passed.

The cleanup now begins.

Lafourche and Terrebonne Parishes appear to have taken the brunt of the storm in southern Louisiana.  Gustav's hurricane-speed winds caused extensive damage to homes and businesses from Grand Isle to Lafayette and shut off power to close to a million utility customers statewide.

"This had been a very serious storm with devastating consequences for many areas," Gov. Bobby Jindal said during a Monday evening news conference.  Morgan City and Houma were the hardest hit towns while Lafourche and Terrebonne were the most impacted parishes, Jindal said.

Lafourche Parish was hit with 100 mph winds and flooding was extensive south of Golden Meadow. Winds reached 82 mph in Baton Rouge and 75 mph in Lafayette. As a result, power lines and trees are down everywhere, inhibiting response efforts.

The great news out of all of this is the fact that no water rescues were needed, unlike Katrina three years ago.  I'm happy that's one memory we won't have to repeat.

Coming Home
Mayor Ray Nagin said tonight that New Orleanians should not return to the city until later this week, but promised anxious residents that "re-entry is only days away, and not weeks."

In a story on NOLA.com, Nagin said Tuesday will be devoted to assessing the level of damage, and beginning repairs. He said any citizens caught trying to re-enter the city on Tuesday will be turned away, but that by Tuesday evening he hoped to be able to announce when residents will be welcome back.

"Tomorrow is not the day for you to come back to the city of New Orleans," he said, noting that workers need to clear debris, fix power lines, and begin working to restore power to thousands of homes and businesses, among other things.

On Tuesday, only essential city workers and utility personnel will be allowed back in to the city. On Wednesday, New Orleans will begin welcoming back what Nagin described as "tier one" companies: retailers and other major companies who need to check on their stock and begin preparing to re-open.

While Nagin said citizens trying to re-enter would be stopped and turned around, he did not provide specifics on how many police or national guardsmen would be devoted to enforcing the provision.

He said the public schools will remain closed until next Monday, and that the earliest the Catholic schools run by the Archdiocese would re-open is Friday.

Hang in there, everyone.  I hope you can be home soon.

Dennis

A sigh of relief on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans tonight.  Now that the danger from Hurricane Gustav has apparently passed, the cleanup is underway.

Below are a couple of photos I snapped about an hour ago at the intersection of Bourbon and Canal... light rain was falling, but the wind was dying down.  Again tonight, the streets were empty except for the police and National Guard.

Dennis

So the big question is... what does Bourban Street and the French Quarter look like?

Watch the video... as you can see, it looks fine... a little wet and a little debris, but overall, it's all good!

Dennis

The French Quarter is a little messy, but looking pretty good tonight.

My photographer and I came back to our hotel tonight after working in Metarie.  We found lots of debris scattered down Canal Street, but no major damage.

Dennis

It's 5pm here in New Orleans, and the city is starting to exhale after watching Hurricane Gustav make landfall this morning.

The storm made landfall as a category 3 hurricane in southeast Louisiana.  The storm surge was strong, but not strong enough to destroy the levees in New Orleans.  Very little damage has been reported, and what has been damaged is nothing compared to what happened three years ago with Katrina.  Whew.

Now, our eyes turn eastward as we watch Hurricane Hanna and Tropical Storm Ike.  Our exclusive "Wind/Wave Forecast" on MyFoxStorm.com continues to worry me with regards to Hanna... the National Hurricane Center is predicting this storm will strengthen into a category 2 hurricane before it makes landfall in Georgia and South Carolina later this week... however, our forecast model seems to indicate a bigger storm.  Everyone on the East coast needs to go ahead and prepare for a major hurricane making landfall this week.

As for all of us here on the Gulf coast, we need to keep our eyes focused on Ike.  That storm is currently on track to become a hurricane later this week as it moves westward towards the Caribbean.  This storm could be in the Gulf of Mexico by this time next week... let's just hope it stays away from the United States... we've all had more than our share of hurricanes and tropical storms this year.

Make sure you visit MyFoxStorm.com for continuing updates on the tropics.

Dennis

Here are various news reports on Hurricane Gustav this afternoon.

Dennis

Governor: Alabama weathers storm "in great shape"
   MOBILE, Ala. (AP) -- Gov. Bob Riley says Alabama came through
Hurricane Gustav with no major damage. He says there was some
flooding on the coast, but the state is in "great shape."
   Riley visited a shelter for Louisiana evacuees in Birmingham
Monday afternoon. They are anxious to return home, possibly Tusday.
   The state is forecast to get some rain and possible
thunderstorms Monday night, but the worst of the hurricane tracked
west into Louisiana and Texas.
   The governor says about 12,200 evacuees were in 64 shelters in
Alabama. Thousands more are in hotel and motel rooms that are 90
percent full across the state.

Hurricane Gustav fades moving into Louisiana
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN and MARY FOSTER
Associated Press Writers
   NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Hurricane Gustav slammed into the heart of
Louisiana's fishing and oil industry with 110 mph winds Monday,
delivering only a glancing blow to New Orleans that raised hopes
the city would escape the kind of catastrophic flooding brought by
Katrina three years ago.
   Wind-driven water sloshed over the top of the Industrial Canal's
floodwall, but city officials and the Army Corps of Engineers said
they expected the levees, still only partially rebuilt after
Katrina, would hold. Flood protections along the canal broke with
disastrous effect during Katrina, submerging St. Bernard Parish and
the Lower Ninth Ward.
   "We are seeing some overtopping waves," said Col. Jeff Bedey,
commander of the Corps' hurricane protection office. "We are
cautiously optimistic and confident that we won't see catastrophic
wall failure."
   The nearly 2 million people who left coastal Louisiana on a
mandatory evacuation order watched TV coverage from shelters and
hotel rooms hundreds of miles away. While New Orleans wasn't
submerged, there were scores of homes that suffered damage. More
than 500,000 customers were without power. In Terrebonne Parish,
located in the southeast part of the state, several homes had torn
roofs, but winds were still too fierce for officials to fan out and
assess how bad the damage was.
   Keith Cologne of Chauvin, La., looked dejected after talking by
telephone to a friend who didn't evacuate. "They said it's bad,
real bad. There are roofs lying all over. It's all gone," said
Cologne, staying at a hotel in Orange Beach, Ala.
   In the Upper Ninth Ward, about half the streets closest to the
canal were flooded with ankle- to knee-deep water as the road
dipped and rose. Of more immediate concern to authorities were two
small vessels that broke loose from their moorings in the canal and
were resting against the Florida Street wharf.
   By mid afternoon Monday, the rain had stopped in the French
Quarter, the highest point in the city. The wind was breezy but not
fierce, and some of the approximately 10,000 people who chose to
defy warnings and stay behind began to emerge. But knowing that the
levees surrounding the city could still be pressured by rising
waters, no one was celebrating just yet.
   "I don't think we're out of the woods. We still have to worry
about the water," said Gerald Boulmay, 61, a St. Louis Hotel
worker and lifelong New Orleans resident.
   One community in southeast Louisiana was fearful their levee
wouldn't hold. As many as 300 homes in Plaquemines Parish were
threatened, and the mayor called a television station to issue an
urgent plea to any residents who were left to flee to the
Mississippi River, where officials would evacuate them.
   "It's overtopping. There's a possibility it's going to be
compromised," said Phil Truxillo, a Plaquemines emergency
official.
   Mayor Ray Nagin said the city didn't yet know if the vulnerable
West Bank would stay dry. Worries about the level of flood
protection in an area where enhancements to the levees are years
from completion were a key reason Nagin was so insistent residents
evacuate the city.
   The storm surge in the Industrial Canal on the east side of the
city reached 12 feet -- the same height as the lowest wall.
Officials monitoring the flood protection system relaxed, then
turned their concern to the West Bank, where waters could still
rise and pressure incomplete levees over the next day as the storm
blusters inland.
   "It doesn't look like it's going to, like, break," said
resident Renee Gilmore, who surveyed her neighborhood near the
canal before joining friends for an impromptu neighborhood party.
   The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Gustav hit around
9:30 a.m. near Cocodrie (pronounced ko-ko-DREE), a low-lying
community in Louisiana's Cajun country 72 miles southwest of New
Orleans, as a Category 2 storm on a scale of 1 to 5. The storm
weakened to a Category 1 later in the afternoon. Forecasters feared
the storm would arrive as a devastating Category 4.
   As of noon, the extent of the damage in Cajun country was not
immediately clear. State officials said they had still not reached
anyone at Port Fourchon, a vital hub for the energy industry where
huge amounts of oil and gas are piped inland to refineries. The eye
of Gustav passed about 20 miles from the port and there were fears
the damage there could be extensive.
   The storm could prove devastating to the region of fishing
villages and oil-and-gas towns. For most of the past half century,
the bayou communities have watched their land disappear at one of
the highest rates of erosion in the world. A combination of factors
-- oil drilling, hurricanes, levees, dams -- have destroyed the
swamps and left the area with virtually no natural buffer against
storms.
   Damage to refineries and drilling platforms could cause gasoline
prices at the pump to spike. The Gulf Coast is home to nearly half
the nation's refining capacity, while offshore the Gulf accounts
for about 25 percent of domestic oil production and 15 percent of
natural gas output. But oil prices actually tumbled to $111 a
barrel as the storm weakened.
   The nation was nervously watching to see how New Orleans would
deal with Gustav almost exactly three years after Katrina flooded
80 percent of the city and killed roughly 1,600 people. Federal,
state and local officials took a never-again stance after Katrina
and set to work planning and upgrading flood defenses in the
below-sea-level city.
   The Federal Emergency Management Agency had cartons of food,
water, blankets and other supplies to sustain 1 million people for
three days ready to be distributed Monday -- a contrast to Katrina,
when thousands waited for rescue in a hot Superdome.
   "With Katrina they didn't come and rescue us until the next
day," said LaTriste Washington, 32, who stayed in her home during
the 2005 hurricane and later was rescued by boat. She was in a
shelter in Birmingham, Ala., Monday. "This time they were ready
and had buses lined up for us to leave New Orleans."
   President Bush, who skipped the Republican convention to monitor
the storm from Texas, applauded the preparation and response
efforts.
   "The coordination on this storm is a lot better than on -- than
during Katrina," Bush said noting how the governors of Alabama,
Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas had been working in concert. "It
was clearly a spirit of sharing assets, of listening to somebody's
problems and saying, `How can we best address them?"'
   Meanwhile, Republicans hurried to turn the opening day of the
convention into a fundraising drive for hurricane victims.
Presidential candidate John McCain's wife and first lady Laura Bush
were expected to address the shortened session and appeal for Gulf
Coast help.
   Both Republicans meeting in St. Paul and the campaign of
Democratic nominee Barack Obama asked supporters to send a text
message to a five-digit code that would make a donation to the Red
Cross to help victims of the hurricane.
   For all their apparent similarities, Hurricanes Gustav and
Katrina were different in one critical respect: Katrina smashed the
Gulf Coast with an epic storm surge that topped 27 feet, a far
higher wall of water than Gustav hauled ashore.
   Katrina was a bigger storm when it came ashore in August 2005 as
a Category 3 storm and it made a direct hit on the
Louisiana-Mississippi line. Gustav skirted along Louisiana's
shoreline at "a more gentle angle," said National Weather Service
storm surge specialist Will Shaffer.
   Nagin's emergency preparedness director, Lt. Col. Jerry Sneed,
said residents might be allowed to return 24 hours after the
tropical storm-force winds die down.
   Other evacuated areas along the coast may be away from home for
longer, said National Hurricane Center director Bill Read. The
hurricane will likely slow down as it heads into Texas and possibly
Arkansas, and those areas could then get 20 inches of rainfall.
   Only one storm-related death, a woman killed in a car wreck
driving from Baton Rouge to New Orleans, was reported in Louisiana.
Before arriving in the U.S., Gustav was blamed for at least 94
deaths in the Caribbean.
   In Mississippi, officials said a 15-foot storm surge flooded
homes and inundated the only highways to coastal towns devastated
by Katrina. Officials said at least three people near the Jordan
River had to be rescued from the floodwaters. Elsewhere in the
state, an abandoned building in Gulfport collapsed and a few homes
in Biloxi were flooded.
   The ground floor of the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino on Biloxi's
casino row was flooded during the storm surge from Gustav.
Hurricane Katrina smashed the casino three years ago shortly before
it was to open.
   Bobby Tuber, the casino's facility-grounds manager, said the
storm put about 30 inches of water in the building but the casino
itself, located on an upper level, and was not damaged.
   "We're fine. We'll come out all well," Tuber said as he and
others used a pump and a large hose to remove the water.
   Gustav was the seventh named storm of the Atlantic hurricane
season. The eighth grew into Hurricane Hanna Monday, followed
quickly by the formation of Tropical Storm Ike a few hours later.
Forecasters said it could come ashore in Georgia and South Carolina
late in the week.


Bush: Gustav response 'better' than Katrina
By BEN FELLER
Associated Press Writer
   SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- Relieved and upbeat, President Bush declared
Monday that the government had responded "a lot better" to
Hurricane Gustav than it did to deadly Hurricane Katrina, which
obliterated the Gulf Coast three years ago and damaged his
administration's credibility for handling major crises.
   Eager to show that officials had learned the tragic lessons of
Katrina, Bush scrapped an opening-night speech at the Republican
National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., and flew instead to
emergency command centers in Texas. He landed shortly after a
weakened Gustav hit Cocodrie, La., 72 miles southwest of New
Orleans. Once feared as a monster storm more frightening than
Katrina, Gustav struck only a glancing blow on New Orleans.
   "The coordination on this storm is a lot better than on -- than
during Katrina," said Bush, who left a hurricane briefing in
Austin smiling, shaking hands with emergency workers and posing for
pictures.
   At each briefing Bush struck a cheerful tone, saying residents
were successfully evacuated from the Gulf Coast, rescue supplies
were in place and abundant, but that blame was not.
   "There was clearly a spirit of sharing assets, of listening to
somebody's problems and saying, `How can we best address them?"'
Bush said. "The federal government is very much involved in
helping the states. Our job is to assist."
   The image of Bush, standing with FEMA Director David Paulison,
shaking hands with emergency workers was that of a hands-on
president in charge. Three years ago, Bush seemed out of touch and
distant from the suffering as he congratulated then-FEMA Director
Michael Brown and told him, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a
job." Brown later resigned amid criticism of his agency's
performance.
   Bush's first look at Katrina was from an Air Force One flyover
of the Gulf Coast in 2005. The storm killed nearly 1,600 people,
wiped out 90,000 square miles of property and wreaked billions of
dollars in damages.
   Katrina helped tank Bush's job approval across the nation. His
trip Monday to a Texas Emergency Operations Center in Austin, about
400 miles west of Gustav's direct path, and the Alamo Regional
Command Reception Center in San Antonio served to blur the image of
Louisiana residents stranded on rooftops of homes flooded by
Katrina.
   Gustav slammed into the heart of Louisiana's fishing and oil
industry with 110 mph winds, but delivered only a glancing blow to
New Orleans, raising hopes that the city would escape the kind of
catastrophic flooding caused by Katrina, which was a bigger storm
when it came ashore.
   The nearly 2 million people who left coastal Louisiana on a
mandatory evacuation order watched TV coverage from shelters and
hotel rooms hundreds of miles away. Levees in New Orleans have
survived Gustav so far, but parts of southern Louisiana remain in
grave danger, federal emergency management officials said Monday.
   Paulison told reporters on Air Force One traveling to Texas that
unlike during Katrina, help was deployed ahead of the storm,
significantly easing evacuations. Everyone in New Orleans who
wanted to evacuate could have, Paulison said. "There should not be
any excuses," he said. "If people stayed in New Orleans, it was
their choice."
   "It's been a huge evacuation," Bush said. "It's hard for a
citizen to pull up stakes and move out of their home and face the
uncertainty that comes when you're not at home. And I want to thank
those citizens who listened carefully to the local authorities and
evacuated."
   Later, at another command center in San Antonio, Bush made a
plea for Americans to help support recovery efforts by donating to
relief agencies.
   "Nobody's happy about these storms," he said. "Everybody's
praying for everybody's safety, but I'm confident that after the
storm passes and there's a human need, it will be met because of
the generosity of the American people."
   The Federal Emergency Management Agency had cartons of food,
water, blankets and other supplies to sustain 1 million people for
three days ready to be distributed Monday.
   Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told The Associated
Press that he could not remember a time when FEMA was juggling so
many major disasters at once. Besides Gustav, FEMA is dealing with
Hurricane Hanna, more than a dozen major uncontrolled fires across
the country, flooding in eastern and northern Florida and heavy
precipitation predicted later this week over the panhandle and
southern coast of Alaska.
   Gustav dominated cable television coverage, stealing attention
from a presidential nominating convention that Republicans had
planned as a four-day adrenaline boost for nominee-in-waiting John
McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Yet while
Gustav dampened the revelry in St. Paul, it also gave McCain an
opportunity to further distance himself from the unpopular
incumbent, who now has no plans to attend the convention.
   McCain spent Monday at a disaster relief center in Waterville,
Ohio, helping pack cleaning supplies and other items in plastic
buckets being sent to the Gulf Coast. Rather than a keynote address
or other political oratory, the convention programmers gave
McCain's wife, Cindy, and first lady Laura Bush top billing to make
televised appeals for help for hurricane victims.
   "Mistakes were made by everyone" at all levels of government
in the handling of Katrina, Mrs. Bush said Monday on CNN. "The
lessons that were learned from Katrina can serve the United States
very well in any kind of disaster."
   Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama scaled back Labor
Day speeches to unions on Monday and urged hundreds of thousands of
supporters to donate to the Red Cross to help hurricane victims.
Obama finished his Labor Day campaign schedule with stops in
Michigan and Wisconsin, two battleground states the campaign views
as possible wins, before heading home to Chicago to monitor the
situation and decide his schedule for the rest of the week.


Superdome operator: stadium looks good
By BRETT MARTEL
AP Sports Writer
   The Louisiana Superdome, for now still scheduled to host an NFL
regular-season opener Sunday between the New Orleans Saints and
Tampa Bay Buccaneers, appeared to be in good condition after the
worst of Hurricane Gustav had passed, the stadium's operator said.
   "We're in good shape," said Doug Thornton, vice president of
SMG, the company that manages the Superdome and neighboring New
Orleans Arena. "We've got some exterior signs ripped and things
like that, downed fences and light poles blown over, but nothing
major, nothing structural or nothing that would affect the interior
condition of the building."
   Thornton, who spearheaded the ambitious $200 million,
eight-month renovation of the Superdome following Hurricane
Katrina, remained in the stadium with a handful of staff during the
storm Sunday night and Monday.
   Thornton said there was no noticeable structural or interior
damage, but stressed that a more thorough inspection still needed
to be done. The stadium had yet to lose normal power as of Monday
afternoon, he said.
   While the dome may be in good shape, whether or not the Saints
play there depends on several factors that may be out of stadium
management's control.
   Thornton said those matters include:
   -- When the city allows residents to return, which affects not
only the amount of fans who can attend but also the staff of
approximately 2,500 needed to stage an NFL game, including police
who handle security and may still be needed for post-hurricane
patrols.
   -- Whether suppliers can ship in needed food and drink for
concession stands, suites and lounges. Thornton said all food had
been shipped out before the storm for fear it could spoil if the
power went out.
   "Just based on my gut right now, it all of it looks pretty
positive," Thornton said. "But again, we don't have a full report
on damage out in the community and how long it may take to restore
power and all those things that may influence the decision."
   If officials decided it was not practical to play the game in
New Orleans this Sunday, it was not clear what the backup plan
would be.
   "We are continuing to monitor the situation in close
coordination with the Saints," NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said.
"Our focus today is on the brave people of the Gulf Coast. We have
great admiration for them and for the public safety and emergency
personnel who are tirelessly working to protect lives and property
in that region. We will make an announcement at the appropriate
time about the status of the Saints' game scheduled for Sunday in
the Superdome."
   Because Tampa Bay and New Orleans play each other twice by
virtue of being in the same division, they could potentially
flip-flop home dates. New Orleans is scheduled to visit Tampa Bay
on Nov. 30.
   Thornton said the dome would be available to host that game,
which would be one day after Grambling State and Southern play
there in the annual Bayou Classic.
   Meanwhile, Thornton said the neighboring New Orleans Arena, home
of the NBA's Hornets, also did not appear to have any serious
damage. None of the windows in its atrium around the main entry
broke. It appeared flying debris dented the siding, "but that
could be easily fixed," Thornton said. He also said a large
outdoor video board was out.
   There were no concerts or other major events scheduled in the
arena this week, Thornton said.
   When Katrina hit on Aug. 29, 2005, high winds ripped a hole in
the Superdome's roof, allowing rain water to pour in. With power
out in New Orleans humid late summer, mold festered. In addition,
the stadium was trashed by about 30,000 evacuees who were stuck
there for days without plumbing or air conditioning.
   The entire roof was replaced and much of the inside gutted and
disinfected before suites, concession stands and club lounges were
rebuilt in time for the Saints' 2006 home opener.
   This time, New Orleans was under a mandatory evacuation and the
Superdome, a vital economic engine for the city for all the major
events it hosts, is no longer used as a refuge of last resort.

Some good news this evening for people living across the Alabama Gulf coast, as Hurricane Gustav has spared the region from any major damage.

FOX6 News reporter Dave Bondy is in Mobile this evening, where he reports parts of I-10 and the causeway near the U.S.S. Alabama battleship were flooded this afternoon due to storm surge.  However, the EMA director in Mobile says there are no reports of any major damage.

The same holds true for Dauphin Island, Bayou La Batre, Gulf Shores and Orange Beach: no major damage.  AL.com has photos of flooding on the Alabama Gulf coast as Gustav arrived, but no serious damage was reported.

Dennis

We're listening to reports here in New Orleans about a levee in St. Bernard Parish that may be close to failing.  This levee is not in the city of New Orleans -- it's south, but folks are worried.

Here in New Orleans, the weather is calming down quite a bit.  Winds are blowing about 10-20 mph, with gusts around 25-30.  The rain has also stopped, although we could see a few more showers this evening and tonight.

The temperature came up some this afternoon as the winds shifted to the south.  That really brought the humidity up, making it feel a lot more muggy.

The break in the rain has allowed emergency crews to get out and start surveying damage and cleaning up.  There have been widespread reports of trees and power lines down all across Louisiana, but so far, no significant damage has been reported.  However, many areas along the southern coast of Louisiana have not been surveyed, so more damage could be discovered in the next day or two.

By the way, that fire here in Metarie this morning was a house fire at 414 Dorrington Blvd. No one was hurt, but the house was heavily damaged.  There was also a fire on Esplanade Avenue.


Returning Evacuees
Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard is expected to hold a news conference at 7pm to announce plans on how evacuees will be allowed to return.  No timeline has yet been announced.  New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said earlier today evacuees may be allowed to return as early as Tuesday, but Gov. Jindal said this afternoon the area may not be ready tomorrow.

Dennis