Hurricane Gustav response, August 31

3:54 p.m. MT

Additional resources have been ordered today so that they can be staged ready to be deployed as needed after the hurricane makes landfall:

  • Both Southern Area Type 1 Incident Management Teams (IMT): Quesinberry (Blue) and Ruggiero (Red)
  • One Type 2 IMT
  • The Texas Lone Star State IMT is being staged at College Station.
  • Five local jurisdiction Texas Type 3 IMT’s are also being staged at College Station
  • Two Buying Teams to be staged in Arkansas and Georgia
  • Eight Type 2 crews

This is in addition to the resources Wildfire Today reported yesterday, three NIMO teams and FEMA resources including Incident Management Assistance Teams (IMAT) and an Advanced Emergency Response Team (ERT-A).

The Southern Geographic Area has increased their preparedness level to Four. The Mississippi coordination center has closed in anticipation of the hurricane and the Louisiana center will close by noon tomorrow. Texas will assume the duties of the Louisiana center.

The computer models at noon MT today are predicting Gustav will remain a category 3 storm as it moves rapidly across the Gulf and should make landfall west of New Orleans around mid-day on Monday. It is moving too quickly to pick up much additional energy from the warm waters after unexpectedly losing much of it’s punch while transiting across Cuba. After landfall it’s a little uncertain, but it will most likely slow down and meander around east Texas for a while, probably causing widespread flooding.

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