Hurricane Gustav made landfall on Monday, September 1 at 15:00 UTC (10:00 CDT) near Cocodrie, Louisiana and about 70 miles southwest of New Orleans. As Gustav neared the coastline it weakened to a category 2 storm, making landfall with maximum sustained winds of around 110 mph (175 km/hr) and a central pressure of 955mb. Gustav was a relatively large storm with hurricane force winds extending out to 70 miles from the center and New Orleans would have been located just on the boundary of the hurricane force winds.

A National Ocean Service station at Grand Isle, Louisiana recorded a gust of 83 mph shortly after landfall, with an automated station at Shell Beach indicating a gust of 71 mph.

The center of Hurricane Gustav passed north-west as a category 2 storm close to Morgan City, Louisiana. It weakened to a category 1 hurricane as it approached New Iberia and Lafayette with maximum sustained winds of 90 mph and hurricane force winds extending 50 miles from the center. A wind gust of 75 mph was recorded in New Iberia, while Baton Rouge experienced sustained winds of 56 mph with a gust of 91 mph. Meteorological observations show Lafayette was subject to sustained winds of 47 mph at 19:00 UTC on Monday evening. This was around the time Gustav was approaching the city as a low category 1 hurricane. There are no observations for a few hours after this time but reports of heavy rain with thunder which means Gustav was likely moving over the city.

As Gustav approached the Louisiana coast, it tracked through the main offshore platform region as a low to moderate category 3 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of around 115 mph . The broad wind field has consistently covered close to 70 miles of hurricane force winds.
Significant wave heights being reported in the Gulf of Mexico are as high as 35 ft, e.g. by Buoy 42040 located south of Dauphin Island, near Mobile, AL. Live Bouy Reports .
It seems that Gustav has been prevented from re-strengthening before landfall by the presence of windshear and upper-level dry air intrusion from the south.

Gustav reached its maximum intensity of a strong category 4 storm over the Caribbean Sea just before making landfall in Cuba. It intensified from a tropical storm to a category 4 storm in about 24 hours. The track over western Cuba impacted the circulation of and Gustav weakened to a category 3 storm by the time it emerged off the northwest coast.

Previous to impacting Cuba, Hurricane Gustav tracked close to the Cayman Islands on Saturday morning, 30 August as a category 1 storm. When Gustav was at its closest to these islands, the maximum sustained winds were near 85 mph (140 km/hr) and hurricane force winds extended outward from the centre to 60 miles (94 km). Prior to tracking over the Cayman Islands, Gustav made landfall in Haiti at around 17:30 UTC Tuesday, 26 August as a strong category 1 hurricane after rapid intensification prior to landfall. The mountainous terrain of Haiti initiated a weakening trend and Gustav was a tropical storm by the time it reached Jamaica around 18:00 UTC on Thursday, 28 August.

Gustav originated from a tropical wave that moved off the west coast of Africa on August 14 but experienced unfavourable developmental conditions with strong wind shear and marginal sea surface temperatures until entering the Caribbean on Sunday, 24 August. Wind shear in this region was low and sea surface temperatures were markedly higher allowing for quick development to a category 1 hurricane.

Gustav compared to Katrina

Although both officially a category 3 storm at, or close to, landfall, Gustav is a very different storm to Katrina. The main differences are in size and central pressure, as well as track. Katrina passed 40 miles or so to the east of New Orleans, and Gustav remained 70 miles to the west of New Orleans. Also, Katrina’s wind field was much bigger than Gustav’s, with hurricane force winds extending 110 miles, compared to Gustav’s 70 miles. In addition, Katrina’s sustained winds were near 127 mph, compared to Gustav’s 115 mph, and more notably Katrina’s minimum central pressure at landfall was a very intense 920 mb – the 3rd lowest recorded for a landfalling hurricane. Gustav’s is 956 mb. In addition, out in the Gulf of Mexico, Katrina had been a severe category 5 hurricane with sustained winds up to 175 mph at its peak, and affected the offshore platforms with category 4 and 5 winds. Gustav has been a moderate category 3 through most of its track through the offshore platforms. The maximum significant wave height recorded for Katrina was 55 feet in the Gulf, which was the highest ever recorded, and so far for Gustav has been 35 ft.

Katrina’s storm surge was 24-28 feet along the western Mississippi coast across a path of about 20 miles, tapering to a height of 17-22 feet along the eastern MS coast. The maximum high water mark observation was 27.8 feet at Pass Christian, MS. Surges in eastern Louisiana generally ranged from 10 to 19 feet. For Gustav we are expecting maximums of around 13 ft in the landfall area, and 6-9 feet in eastern Louisiana.

Rainfall was not a driver of the loss or damage for Katrina, although up to 20-40 inches of rainfall in total were recorded in several locations across Louisiana, parts of Mississippi, and western Tennessee and Kentucky as the remnants of Katrina moved inland. Gustav is forecast to produce similar amounts of up to 20 inches in western Louisiana and eastern Texas, although if it stalls inland, rainfall totals could be more.

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RMS Reconnaissance

One September 2, 2008, Risk Management Solutions deployed two reconnaissance teams to the region affected by Hurricane Gustav to survey and document the damage caused by the storm. A detailed reconnaissance report giving information about the locations visited and the damage findings has been complied and is available to download from the ‘What’s New’ section at the top of this report (available for RMS clients only).

A brief summary of the reconnaissance findings is available below:

- Hurricane Gustav weakened rapidly as it made landfall. The inland extent of wind damage is quite limited, ranging from east of Morgan City to just the other side of Houma. Outside this core area, damage is mostly related to either very old construction or tree impact.
• Hurricane Gustav weakened rapidly as it made landfall. The inland extent of wind damage is quite limited, ranging from east of Morgan City to just the other side of Houma. Outside this core area, damage is mostly related to either very old construction or tree impact.
• The observed damage was very sporadic.
• Tree-fall appeared to make a significant contribution to the damage sustained in residential neighbourhoods and to power distribution lines in Baton Rouge.
• Recently-constructed roofs performed better than older roofs.
• People who learned from Katrina (by replacing their roof or elevating their home on stilts) suffered less loss than those who did not.
• Apart from casinos, there is very little rebuilding in the areas hit hardest by storm surge during Hurricane Katrina.
• Some casinos along the Mississippi coast are open for business only three days after Hurricane Gustav made landfall in spite of the fact that they were flooded by the storm surge. The effort to clean up the storm surge debris in the Gulfport-Biloxi area was started very soon after the storm passed.
• Buildings in Louisiana appear to have a higher percentage of metal roof buildings for residential construction, particularly in poorer neighbourhoods. Many examples of metal cladding failure at relatively low wind speeds were seen. This type of damage is usually associated with older construction. Metal panels applied in the last 5-10 years seem to have performed adequately at these wind speeds.
• The practice of reroofing old roofs with metal panel on battens nailed into substrate should be discontinued. These configurations typically do not have nails that are long enough to fasten the battens to the roof deck and, as a result, fail at relatively low wind speeds.
• There is evidence that residential buildings built since Katrina are still vulnerable to wind damage. We saw two or three cases in the lower parishes where buildings less than two years old failed due to gable inadequate construction details.

The RMS reconnaissance confirms also those reports available through the media. Research personnel from the Florida Coastal Monitoring Program at the University of Florida carried out a survey of 101 properties in the Town of Houma to quantify the loss of roof cover on one- and two-storey single family homes with shingle roofs. The observed roof cover was predominantly architectural shingles on moderate to steep hip and/or gable roofs. About 73% of the roofs were damaged, with about 45% experiencing up to 10% loss and about 12% showing loss of 10 to 20%. Less than 7% had roof cover loss of more than 50%. Observations from nearby portable weather stations indicate that peak gust windspeeds in the order of 85mph, and RMS is verifying this observation.

Reports suggest that few grocery stores or fuelling stations have reopened, but as of 12:01 a.m. on Thursday, September 4th, all New Orleans evacuees were welcome to return to the city. Mayor Ray Nagin reminded residents that much of the city remained without power and encouraged those needing extra care, especially the elderly and those with medical conditions, not to return as of yet since hospitals and shelters remain understaffed. He also encouraged citizens to bring Hurricane preparation kits, adequate water to last an extended period and non-perishable food items.

Jefferson Parish evacuees are allowed to return in phases. On Tuesday, September 2nd, critical businesses, first responders and businesses necessary for residents to return such as grocery stores and pharmacies were allowed to return. Once the first phase was complete, most residents were allowed to return while publically assisted evacuees are returning to the parish on Friday, September 5th.

To discourage looting, such as those after Katrina, National Guard troops patrolled the New Orleans businesses. Few cases of looting have been reported across the city, but more may be found as evacuees come back to their homes. Several more cases of looting have been seen across the Hurricane stricken region including Jefferson Parish where the sheriff’s office reports 14 looting arrests and a couple thousand burglary alarm calls as of Thursday, September 4th.

Power Outages

Power outages have been widespread and severe due to high levels of damage to the transmission lines. Latest reports indicate that it could be up to 4 weeks until power is fully restored. Entergy reported the total number of electrical power outages caused by Gustav peaked at 850,000 on Tuesday, 2 Sept 2008. As of 21:00 (CDT), Thursday, 4 September 2008, Entergy reports approximately 430,000 customers having restored power with 330,000 of those customers in Louisiana. 530,000 customers remain without power across the affected area. Entergy’s team of 11,000 workers have assessed the situation and have published a high level restoration schedule. Most of southern Louisiana will restored by mid-September with the most heavily damaged areas in Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes restored by October 1. This is the second highest number of outages in the company’s 95-year history, behind the 1.1 million caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and surpassing the 800,000 due to Hurricane Rita the same year. The company has reported that the Baton Rouge area has never sustained damage as severe as it is currently experiencing from Hurricane Gustav- the last storm to cause damage close to this was Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

Entergy has reported that its transmission system had experienced “massive damage”, with 168 transmission lines and 120 substations out of service. Entergy workers were able to restore two critical transmission lines, reconnecting New Orleans to the statewide powergrid, officials said on Wednesday, 3 Sept 2008, allowing power to be restored to some homes and businesses. However, 10 of the 14 transmission lines serving the New Orleans and Baton Rouge were still out of service as of Wednesday evening, and full power restoration could take weeks, according to Entergy officials.
Gas operations reported 150 gas lines were damaged in Baton Rouge due to the uprooting of trees: 15 of these lines will be repaired, however 135 have suffered major damage.

Its Waterford 3 nuclear power plant was shut down on the evening of Sunday August 31st in anticipation of high winds and the River Bend Station was taken offline at 6:00 pm on September 1st following concerns about load. Assessments have been carried out, and operations are set to resume as soon as all necessary regulatory requirements are completed.

In addition to ground assessment crews, Entergy are utilizing aircraft to assess some damage from the air. In areas of extensive damage or where access is the most difficult, the company is informing customers that it could be several weeks before repairs are completed and power is fully restored.


Storm surge damage

Hurricane Gustav made landfall just west of the oil service facilities at Grand Isle and Port Fourchon. Both the NOAA gauges at Grand Isle and Port Fourchon reported a maximum surge of 1.5m above mean sea level (MSL).

The runs from both the University of North Carolina’s ADCIRC model and RMS’s in-house model forecast that Hurricane Gustav would drive surge east of the landfall into Lake Borgne (located to the east of the city of New Orleans) and along the Gulf coast of Louisiana and Mississippi.

The gauge at Bay Waveland Yacht Club, Mississippi, reported a peak surge of 3.07m above MSL. Shell Beach in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, reported a surge level of 2.98m. Further to the east, Port Pascagoula, Mississippi, recorded a surge of 1.75m, with 1.04m at Dauphine Island, Alabama, and 0.86m at Panama City, Florida.

In Biloxi, Mississippi, the Associated Press reported flooding to a depth of 30in (1m) at one of the casinos along the shore and RMS recon teams confirmed that storm surge did in fact impact some casinos along this area of the coast, however most were quickly cleaning up and getting back to business. Prior to Hurricane Katrina, these casinos had been located on barges, but are now built onshore.

Waves slightly overtopped the floodwalls along the western side of the Industrial Canal in New Orleans, as the wind direction turned to the south-east with the storm moving inland. The New Canal Street gauge reported a surge of 1.41m. The Army Corps of Engineers closed floodgates across the mouths of the three outlet canals in the city and pumped water into Lake Pontchartrain to the north.

No surge has been reported to the west of where the Hurricane’s center came ashore, due to the circular pattern of winds producing an off-shore flow to the east.

Damage to oil and gas facilities

No major damages was caused by Gustav to the oil infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico, however it is likely to be some time before the Gulf of Mexico is back to pre-storm production levels. Reports indicate that the majority of the problem lies with the Louisiana power transmission infrastructure which sustained significant damage.

Hurricane Gustav was a moderate category 3 storm in the Gulf of Mexico when it passed through concentrations of offshore platforms. Platforms are vulnerable to wind and wave damage – and the main risk from Gustav out at sea was the action of the high winds creating huge waves – as there is a strong relationship between the two. However, initial indications are that there was no substantial damage, and the highest reported significant wave heights near Gustav’s path were 35 feet, compared to 55 feet for Katrina.

Ahead of the Hurricane, personnel were evacuated from a total of 626 production platforms, constituting 87.3% of the 717 manned platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Personnel were evacuated from 100 (87.3%) of the 121 rigs. Approximately all of the oil production in the Gulf was shut-in (estimated current oil production from the Gulf of Mexico is 1.3 million barrels of oil per day). About 95% of the natural gas production in the Gulf was also shut-in (estimated current natural gas production from the Gulf of Mexico is 7.4 billion cubic feet of gas per day).

The Governor of Louisiana told reporters that as much as 20% of oil and gas production that was stopped because of the Hurricane could be restored by this weekend, but stressed that it was a rough estimate. Lars Herbst of the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service said updates from drillers and producers of oil and natural gas were "very promising." No major damage was reported, though it could be days before a full assessment can be completed.

Transocean, the world's largest offshore drilling contractor, moved eight self-propelled rigs out of the way ahead of Gustav, leaving three moored rigs in the storm's path. According to Transocean, the three rigs appear to have remained in place based on satellite signal trackings. Diamond Offshore, another major driller, also said the four to six rigs affected by Gustav appear to have withstood its impact.

It is reported that since Hurricane Katrina, operators have taken steps to better flood-proof their facilities and equipment. News reports suggest that refineries in Louisiana that were shut down by Hurricane Gustav may take about 10 days to resume operations because of a lack of power.

Exxon Mobil Corp. shut Baton Rouge, its second-largest U.S. refinery, after Gustav's winds cut power to the plant, according to an advisory on the company's website. Preliminary damage assessments are being undertaken and no schedule for resumption of operations has been given. Additionally, Exxon Mobil Corp. has reported approximately 37 thousand barrels per day of liquids and 600 million cubic feet per day of natural gas remain shut in. ConocoPhillips, the second-largest U.S. refiner, said its 247,000 barrel-a-day Alliance refinery in southern Louisiana sustained “minor damage” and a complete assessment of the refinery would be made later.

One of the nation’s largest energy-transport nodes, Port Fourchon, was cut off by 8 feet (3 m) of flooding of Highway 1, the only land-based connection with the mainland. Located only a few miles from where Gustav made landfall, Port Fourchon was subjected to storm surge 5 feet (1.5 m) high. The flood waters have now receded and assessments of the port and the linking roadway indicate no major structural damage. Minimal operations are scheduled to resume in the next few days. Approximately 18% of the nation’s energy supply flows through Port Fourchon.

The Hurricane brushed by the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) where 1.2 million barrels of oil per day is offloaded from supertankers. The center of the Hurricane passed about seven miles to the south-west of the central Marine Terminal Platform area. LOOP sustained "no apparent catastrophic damage" and was expected to quickly resume offloading tankers once power was restored to its onshore pipeline systems.

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