Gustav shifts course, heads toward Jamaica

MIAMI – A strengthening Tropical Storm Gustav jogged to the south on Thursday and was likely to graze southern Jamaica and the western tip of Cuba before nearing the oil fields of the Gulf of Mexico as a powerful hurricane.

The eventual U.S. landfall of the seventh storm of what experts have predicted will be an unusually busy Atlantic hurricane season also shifted west in the latest model runs. That would take it deeper into the heavy concentration of U.S. oil and natural gas platforms off the Louisiana and Texas coasts.


“An Air Force reconnaissance plane has found a surprise this morning,” the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. “Gustav has either reformed to the south or been moving more to the south-southwest overnight.”

At 7:30 a.m., Gustav was 130 km east of Kingston, Jamaica, and its top sustained winds had risen again to 110 km per hour, just short of the 119 kph threshold for hurricanes.

New Orleans, the southern U.S. city devastated by Hurricane Katrina three years ago on Friday, remained near the middle of the Miami-based hurricane center’s range of possible landfall locations on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal put New Orleans residents on alert for possible evacuations from Friday.

Reuters