[Latest is that Isidore will likely not make it out of tropical storm status but flooding and surge on the barrier islands remains a problem.]

Lili threat could move Gitmo detainees

Tuesday, September 24, 2002 Posted: 7:29 PM EDT (2329 GMT)

MIAMI, Florida (Reuters) -- With Tropical Storm Lili threatening to grow into a hurricane as it nears southern Cuba, the U.S. military said Tuesday it would move the nearly 600 suspected al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners at its Guantanamo base into shelters if necessary.

But they declined to release details of their storm contingency plans.

"Should the situation warrant, detainees would be relocated to a hardened, fixed facility," said Lt. Col. Bill Costello, a spokesman for the military's Southern Command, which oversees the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay in southeastern Cuba.

"Right now, things are normal at Guantanamo," he added.

The former commander of the joint military task force running the prison operation said in February that the detainees would be moved into empty underground ammunition bunkers if a hurricane threatened.

But neither officials at the base nor at SouthCom headquarters in Miami would say Tuesday whether that was still the plan.

Tropical Storm Lili was about 435 miles southeast of Santo Domingo, on a track that would take it over Hispaniola and then into southern Cuba on Friday. With top winds of 70 mph it was expected to reach hurricane strength of 74 mph by Wednesday.

Most of the 598 prisoners were captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan during the U.S.-led campaign to hunt down the al Qaeda group blamed for last year's September 11 attacks and oust the Taliban government that sheltered it.

They are held in a seaside prison made up of rows of metal cells that look like elongated trailers. They were built by construction contractor Brown and Root, a unit of Haliburton, but officials there could not immediately comment on the wind strength they could withstand.

The military police who guard the prisoners live in a camp made up wooden huts and would likely also be moved into sturdier shelter if a hurricane threatened, Costello said.

"We certainly wouldn't leave troops out in wooden tents, exposed to the elements, while we were moving detainees," he said.

Not counting the prisoners, some 5,000 military officials and civilian contractors live at the base.

-- Anonymous, September 25, 2002

Answers

For maps, see Thread 1.

-- Anonymous, September 25, 2002

Hmmm. Let me rephrase that. Maps Here!

-- Anonymous, September 25, 2002

Aaargh! Sod it, cut and paste:

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=009zo8

-- Anonymous, September 25, 2002

I wish they'd make up their minds about Lili. Last night it was a tropical wave, but they said they would leave the name because it might strengthen.

-- Anonymous, September 25, 2002

Ever since TROPICAL STORM Allison dumped 3 feet of water on Houston, I'm not sure the storm status makes much difference any more. Sure, the winds are bad, but how do you get around that much water?

-- Anonymous, September 25, 2002

"Row, row, row your boat, gently up the street."

-- Anonymous, September 26, 2002

Lili's newest track has it staying below Cuba, staying a tropical storm for the next there days and hopefully not much of a threat to home.

We're headed to NC this morning. should be there sometime this evening.

Now, let's all do our little bit to make the weather cooperate, okay?

-- Anonymous, September 26, 2002

New Orleans Braces (and Parties) for Storm Isidore Bears Down on Louisiana Coast By Adam Nossiter

Special to The Washington Post

Thursday, September 26, 2002; Page A02

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 25 -- Rain from Tropical Storm Isidore crashed down in white sheets on Bourbon Street today, so thick it sloshed through open doorways and reduced car headlights to a dim glow.

Lulu, the bartender at Johnny White's Bar, stared at the wall of water. "It don't affect us," she said, turning to serve another customer at the crowded bar. Every one of the patrons was certain to be soaked on the way out, but they weren't thinking about that. "It's just a rainy day," said Lulu. "No big deal."

But the storm, which had lost strength since slamming the Yucatan Peninsula as a hurricane over the weekend, remained a big enough deal that a hurricane watch extended 300 miles from Cameron, La., to Pascagoula, Miss., and a tropical storm warning prevailed from High Island, Tex., to St. Marks, Fla.

Due south of New Orleans, in coastal areas of Louisiana, evacuations had been ordered in the small marsh towns at the edge of the Gulf of Mexico, and residents there were following a seasonal ritual: a trek over narrow highways inland. Emergency shelters were opened, and officials were expecting a large turnout.

"The situation's worsening," said Mike Deroche, director of the office of emergency preparedness in Terrebone Parish, south of New Orleans. "The thing has decided to take a turn and come our way."

Isidore's winds were predicted to gust to 65 mph, and its center was forecast to pass over the Louisiana coast early Thursday. The storm, however, was so broad that it was also soaking Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. Like Hanna, the tropical storm from earlier this month, Isidore is bringing an abundance of rain to a drought-stricken countryside.

New Orleans has its own particular rhythms, however, and they won't be interrupted, even when rainwater sluices a foot deep on downtown corners, office buildings are deserted, schools are closed, Galatoire's restaurant is nearly empty, and public transportation is shutting down. Mayor Ray Nagin (D) ordered a 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew. But, many of the bars on Bourbon Street remained open through the looming storm, drinkers and bartenders indifferent to whether Isidore would regain official hurricane status. The French Quarter's streets were mostly deserted, but bars were doing brisk business.

"People are going to want to party," said Trish Wilson, bartender at the Old Absinthe House. [Great place for locals and tourists alike.] "And it's just a bad rainstorm at this point." Kyle Sheets, bartender at the Three-Legged Dog, was crowing about the "phenomenal crowd" at his establishment. He never quits for a storm, "not unless the water gets up above my ankles."

Most residents were greeting the storm just as casually. Though few people went to work today, boarded-up windows and sandbagged entrances were rare. There was no exodus from the city.

But the emergency forces in New Orleans were not as nonchalant as the city's inhabitants. They can't afford to be in a place that is hemmed in by swamp, river and lake and lies 10 feet below sea level in some spots. New Orleans sprawls in a shallow bowl. For the nearly 300 years of its history, it has lived with the yearly threat, so far unfulfilled, of total inundation.

"Maybe we'll dodge the bullet again," said Carlos Carrasco, at the threshold of the half-empty restaurant he manages. "We'll get lucky," he said, looking at the rain. "We're so overdue."

The city's 20-odd pumping stations, which pump excess water into Lake Pontchartrain, were going full speed. By midafternoon, with heavy rain falling uninterrupted and those 65-mph gusts in the forecast, the city's director of emergency preparedness, Terry Tullier, didn't care whether others called it a tropical storm or not.

"It might as well be a hurricane," he said. "People really need to go home. Hunker down, batten down the hatches. The center of the storm could come right over New Orleans." City Hall and the courts were all shut down, as were museums and the area's colleges, universities, and public and private schools. More than a foot of rain was predicted, in a city that averages around five feet for the entire year.

With the sky turning blacker, the streets filling with water and fewer and fewer people struggling down the sidewalks, downtown New Orleans took on an end-of-the-world aspect this afternoon. On one of the last streetcars going uptown, the conductor struggled with his brakes and a Pentecostal preacher began declaiming about the Almighty. Into the nearly empty car he shouted: "We'll have church tonight at Felicity Street, pray that this thing will turn around." The rain poured down, a passenger got up, and the preacher boomed: "Best tool on Earth, the name of Jesus."

Back in the French Quarter, the streets were so empty the Quarter looked as it might have before the hordes of tourists came. It was a welcome sight to a weary-looking housekeeper at the Royal Sonesta hotel, dragging on a cigarette under a balcony. "Very much so," she said.

"I see it every day," she said. "Everything. With no clothes on." But tonight, "It'll be very quiet."

© 2002 The Washington Post Company

-- Anonymous, September 26, 2002

Izzy is making his way up here. I want my shrubs watered. A friend has tickets to the Red Sox game tonight. What to do? What to do?

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2002

The game!!!

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2002

Oh, I'm not invited to the game, just trying to be sympathetic with her (so long as my shrubs don't suffer...). At least being one of those Florida teams, we have a chance to win for a change. LOL

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2002

Oh, bummer, thought you were invited. Seemed a bit strange trying to decide whether to watch your phlox getting watered or the Sox getting slaughtered, lol!

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2002

It's been raining here off and on for the last 24 hours. I think the drought has been broken.

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2002