No More Hurricanes! - Gustav was bad enough thanks

Gustav could have been worse. But for the Gulf coast’s most vulnerable residents, near-disaster is near enough. - The Economist

clipped from www.economist.com Could have been worse BY THE time Nathan Reese realised that New Orleans was really being evacuated, his neighbours in St Bernard parish had already cleared out. He scraped up enough money to buy an old car, which he filled with his girlfriend, their newborn son, a cat, three kittens, and whatever clothing they could grab. It was a miserable trip. Traffic crawled. The car had no air-conditioning and it overheated. At one point Mr Reese had to sneak into a hotel outside Houston to get some ice to put on the baby. On September 2nd, the day after Hurricane Gustav made landfall, the family were sitting in a patch of shade outside an emergency shelter in Austin, unsure of their next move. “All I know is we lost everything and we’re trying to get gas so we can get up out of here,” said Mr Reese.