September 02, 2008	Tuesday	Ramazan 1, 1429

WASHINGTON, Sept 1: A historic evacuation of nearly two million people has left the Louisiana coast in southern United States completely empty, guarded only by gun-toting police and National Guards personnel.

Even presidential politics took a back seat as the United States waited to see if Hurricane Gustav would be another Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the region three years ago.

Gustav has already killed at least 94 people on its path through the Caribbean but seemed to have lost some of its strength as it made landfall along the Louisiana coast late on Monday morning.

Gustav was reduced from category three to a category two storm as its winds slowed to 110 miles an hour from 115 miles.

After analysing latest satellite reports, officials at the Department of Homeland Security which deals with national disasters – both man-made and natural – told reporters they believe the southern coast would be spared destruction on the scale of Hurricane Katrina.

The news had an immediate impact on the international oil market. Oil prices fell, reversing earlier gains.

Crude oil for October delivery fell as much as $3.01, or 2.6 percent, to $112.45 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, and traded at $113.19 at 2:32 pm. London time. It earlier rose as much as 2.2 percent to $118.

Earlier, as Gustav gathered strength, the market felt it was going to damage oil imports and production facilities.

The US Department of Energy said earlier that as much as 5.6 million barrels of imported oil that enter the Gulf of Mexico every day had been suspended. Those imports account for 56 percent of all oil imports to the United States.

The Gulf also generates about 25 percent of US oil production, or 1.3 million barrels a day.

While the news brought relief to world consumers wary of ever-increasing oil prices, rescue workers in the Gulf region had more immediate concerns.

In New Orleans, US Army Corps of Engineers was busy strengthening the Industrial Canal walls as mighty waves stirred by the hurricane splashed over the embankments.

But some street flooding was reported on Monday near the Gentilly and Ninth Ward areas of New Orleans as water lapped over the western side of the Industrial Canal.

Three years ago it was the eastern side of the Industrial Canal that was breached and sent many feet of water flooding into the city.

Hurricane Katrina had killed more than 1,600 in the region.

Katrina also caused huge damages — estimated at $81.2 billions.