Isaac, on track to bang southern United States seacoast on Wednesday, is less potent than hurricane that ruined city in 2005.
Residents of the sea-level southern United States coast have been boarding up houses and awaiting apprehensively behind fortified levees as Tropical Storm Isaac rolls over the Gulf of Mexico, endangering to become a full-blown hurricane.
Forecasters anticipated Isaac would power up to hurricane strength, which begins at winds of 119 kph, later on Tuesday and be at least a Category 1 hurricane by the time it’s anticipated to arrive at the swampy coast of southeast Louisiana early on Wednesday.
The focus has been on New Orleans as the big and slow storm takes dead aim at the city destroyed by Hurricane Katrina seven years ago, but the impact will be felt well beyond.
The storm’s winds could be felt more than 320km from the storm’s centre.
Early on Tuesday, Isaac was a big and powerful tropical storm packing top sustained winds of 113kph (kilometres per hour). The storm system was centered about 200 km southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River at and moving northwest at 19kph, in accordance with the National Hurricane Centre in Miami.
Though Isaac’s approach on the evening of the Katrina anniversary invited obvious comparisons, the storm is nowhere near as powerful as Katrina was when it struck on Aug. 29, 2005. Katrina at one point arrived at Category 5 status, with winds of more than 252 kph, and made landfall as a Category 3 storm.
