Storm Gustav drenches Haiti, still targets Gulf of Mexico

The seventh storm of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season swirled 90 miles (150 km) west of impoverished Haiti's dilapidated capital, Port-au-Prince, at 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT), after barging ashore the day before as a hurricane near the southern city of Jacmel.

Gustav was moving slowly, an ominous development for Haiti where hillsides have been stripped of trees and heavy rains frequently cause disastrous mudslides, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

At least two people were killed on Tuesday in a mudslide in Haiti. In the neighboring Dominican Republic, eight people -- seven from the same family -- were buried under mud when a hillside collapsed just north of Santo Domingo.

The storm would soon begin a westerly track that would allow it to regain strength over deep warm waters south of Cuba and take it into the Gulf of Mexico as potentially the first major hurricane to threaten U.S. oil and gas installations there since Wilma in 2005, forecasters said.

Major hurricanes are those that rank from Category 3 upward on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of intensity. The prospect of a major storm in the Gulf of Mexico, where the United States produces a quarter of its oil and 15 percent of its natural gas, has fueled a rally in oil prices.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were both Category 5 storms in the Gulf in 2005 when they cut off around a quarter of U.S. crude oil and gas production by damaging offshore platforms and severing pipelines. Katrina went on to devastate New Orleans and kill 1,500 people on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

POUNDING RAIN
Gustav was expected to dump up to 12 inches (30.5 cm) over Hispaniola, the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and over eastern Cuba, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, the Miami-based hurricane center said.

In some places, the rain could reach a torrential 25 inches (62 cm), the hurricane center added.

That could be devastating for Haiti, where parts of the south are already saturated after the passage last week of Tropical Storm Fay. Fay may have killed more than 50 people in Haiti.
In 2004, Tropical Storm Jeanne was blamed for flooding that killed around 3,000 Haitians, while spring floods that year killed another 2,000 people.

Gustav's top sustained winds dropped to 60 mph (95 kph) as it struggled over Haiti's rugged mountains, below the 74 mph (119 kph) threshold at which tropical storms become hurricanes.

"Slow strengthening is forecast and Gustav could regain hurricane strength on Thursday once it moves away from Haiti," the hurricane center said.

The computer models used to predict storm paths indicated Gustav would probably steer between Cuba and Jamaica, pass near the wealthy Cayman Islands and then Cuba's westernmost tip.

The storm would likely enter the Gulf of Mexico at the weekend and might find rich fuel in a warm eddy of water in the center of the Gulf.

The hurricane center's official forecast took Gustav's top sustained winds up to 121 mph (195 kph), making it a strong Category 3 hurricane within four days. But it noted that some computer models were "more aggressive" than that.

Tropical storm and hurricane alerts were in effect on Wednesday morning for parts of Haiti, Cuba, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.