Washed It!

Tropical storm Hermine has formed in the Gulf of Mexico, and warnings have been issued from Tampico, Mexico, to the Baffin Bay on the south Texas coast, the National Hurricane Center said Monday.

Hermine, the eighth tropical storm of the season, carried maximum sustained winds of 40 mph and was about 190 miles east-southeast of Tampico, Mexico. It was moving north at 8 mph.

U.S. forecasters said it was expected to turn toward the northwest and increase in speed.

“The center of Hermine is expected to approach the coast of northeastern Mexico or extreme southern Texas in the warning area early Tuesday morning,” the Miami-based hurricane center said.

The storm was expected to produce rainfall of 4 to 8 inches over northeastern Mexico and into south Texas, with a maximum of 12 inches possible in some areas.

The Mexican government on Sunday issued a tropical storm warning for the Gulf coast from Tampico to the border with Texas.

In its last advisory Sunday, the hurricane center said Tropical Storm Gaston looked very likely to strengthen again as a tropical cyclone in the Atlantic and could threaten the Caribbean’s Leeward Islands in coming days on a westward track.

The National Hurricane Center gave Gaston, which weakened to a remnant low-pressure area on Thursday soon after becoming a tropical cyclone, an 80% chance of redeveloping over the next 48 hours.

Meteorologist Jeff Masters of private forecaster Weather Underground predicted that Gaston would pass over or just to the northeast of the Lesser Antilles Islands early Tuesday.

“Gaston may threaten Puerto Rico on Wednesday, the Dominican Republic on Thursday, and Haiti, Jamaica and/or the Turks and Caicos Islands by Friday, depending upon the storm’s interaction with a trough of low pressure expected to move off the U.S. East Coast later this week,” Masters posted on a blog Sunday.
Warnings issued in Mexico, Texas as Tropical Storm Hermine forms in gulf

Five years after Hurricane Katrina, President Obama recommitted the nation to ongoing repair of the Gulf Coast as the region’s fragile recovery hung in the balance and his own popularity needed shoring up amid disappointment with the administration’s handling of the gulf oil spill.

Obama underscored the optimism and ongoing frustration felt in New Orleans, a city that had shown signs of renewal despite lingering devastation.

Residents worry the nation will leave them behind, fatigued over the one-two punch of the hurricane and BP spill. Obama seemed intent on convincing them otherwise.

“I wanted to come here and tell the people of this city directly: My administration is going to stand with you – and fight alongside you – until the job is done,” Obama said at Xavier University, a historically black college where he delivered the commencement address less than a year after Katrina.

After being criticized for his administration’s slow response to this year’s BP oil spill, Obama impressed on gulf residents the improvements he had made in streamlining Katrina aid — including $1.8 billion for Orleans Parish Schools announced Friday.

Obama pledged to finish the largest civil-works project in the nation’s history — shoring up the failed levees — by next year. He noted the June groundbreaking on a new Veterans’ Administration hospital.

The White House sent top administration officials as the region held days of panel discussions, art exhibits — even a funeral for Katrina where attendees hoped to bury their grief and move on from the largest residential disaster in the nation’s history.

Yet for a president who works to separate his legacy in the gulf from that of his predecessor, President Bush, the administration’s handling of the BP spill links the two by the perceived inability of government to adequately respond to disaster.

“We are going to stand with you until the oil is cleaned up, the environment is restored, polluters are held accountable, communities are made whole and this region is back on its feet,” Obama said.

Obama made an unscheduled lunch stop before the afternoon speech, ordering a shrimp po’boy at the Parkway Bakery and Tavern, a 100-year-old restaurant in the Mid-City neighborhood of New Orleans, eating with the first lady and their daughters. The president greeted patrons with hugs and handshakes.

“We’re just going to keep on building, we’re going to keep on working, alright?” the president said, according to the pool report.
Obama, in New Orleans, promises to ‘fight alongside’ Gulf Coast

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — BP claimed a key milestone Wednesday in the effort to plug its blown-out well as a government report said much of the spilled oil is gone, heartening officials who have taken heat during the tricky cleanup but leaving some Gulf Coast residents still skeptical.

BP PLC reported that mud forced down the well overnight was pushing the crude back down to its source for the first time since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded off Louisiana on April 20, killing 11 workers.

And a federal report being released Wednesday indicated that only about a quarter of the spilled oil remains in the Gulf, with the rest having been contained, cleaned up or otherwise disappeared.