NPR 2008-09-01

From NPR News in Washington, I’m Craig Windham.

 The outer bands of Hurricane Gustav are expected to reach Louisiana and other parts of the Gulf 1 Coast this evening. The storm has expanded in size, and forecasters say it will have a powerful impact even if it does not intensify 2 further. NPR’s John Hamilton has the latest from the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

 Gustav remains 3 a Category-3 storm with winds of 115 miles an hour. It has been travelling over very warm water which usually makes hurricane ...

 ...security but they should stay in place and try to ride the storm out. Jindal said three critically ill nursing home patients died during the evacuation. Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator 4 David Paulison says he believes FEMA and state and local governments are ready. “I can't stop the damage from happening, and we can't stop the storm from coming in, what we can do is be ready as possible, making sure we are ready, the states…

 Hundreds of thousands of people living along the Gulf Coast have moved inland today, nearly two million from Louisiana alone. Less than ten thousand people are said to be left in New Orleans.  Aaron Broussard, the top official in Jefferson Parish Louisiana, the area on the outskirts 5 of New Orleans is urging any stragglers not to try to ride out the storm. “I need you to have the courage to disconnect yourself from your material things, disconnect yourself from the mindset that somehow you stay in will allow you to better protect …”

 .. bears down on the Gulf Coast, Ed Rappaport is a forecaster with the National Hurricane Center, he says Gustav will slow down as it approaches land. “This will increase the chance for difficulties with rainfall and flooding over the next several days.” Rappaport says Gustav remains a Category-3 storm with winds of 120 miles an hour, powerful enough to cause major damage. The storm is expected to make landfall in Louisiana day after today. David Martin Davies of Texas Public Radio has that story.

 Many of these people are veterans of past hurricanes and they are welcoming a new technology to the exodus 6, an ID bracelet 7 system. Each evacuee 8 is entered into a computer database, Arling Williamson said during the 2005 Hurricane Rita evacuation, she lost track of her children, ‘We didn't find each other until we actually get back, we are all back home' Wilison said the experience was terrifying and she is thankful for the new technology. For NPR News.

 … about two weeks. “I know that I’m going to be working in a shelter, and that’s about all I really know. So obviously I'm more about nervous but I can only be as numb 9 as people that are down there. Can’t imagine what they are going through, so”. The Red Cross says it’s told state chapters they may need to hold one day crash courses for new volunteers in case the storm causes damage on the scale of Hurricane Katrina. For NPR News, I’m Shannon Molin in Boston.

 ......National Guard Troops are helping 10 patrol the nearly deserted…

 ...People said have made it tougher for working class cities like Toledo. Don Gonyea, NPR News, traveling with the Obama campaign inToledo.

 This is NPR News from Washington.

 The Republican National Convention is set to begin tomorrow in St. Paul, Minnesota, but the opening session has been drastically revised to include only essential activities. GOP presidential candidate John McCain says it is not a time for politics or hoopla while the Gulf Coast copes with Hurricane Gustav. President Bush and Vice 11 President Cheney …

 ......operation center in Pearl, Mississippi, where state officials are bracing 12 for the storm’s arrival, the Arizona senator says while Gustav’s path is still uncertain, he is planning to shift the tone of the GOP Convention from a party celebration to a call for action. “Action, in the form of volunteering, donations and the reaching out our hands and our hearts and our wallets to the people who are under such ...... (great threat from this great natural disaster)”

 … just commitment to a relationship with Europe has been placed in doubt by, among other things, Moscow’s failure to adhere to a peace plan Sarkozy himself brokered 13. Though French officials have been dampening any expectation the block would impose sanctions on Russia at this point. Andrew Stroehlein from the International Crisis Group says it’s important that there will be some impact on the EU-Russia partnership 14 talks....

 … briefly 15 today. Venezuela has rejected a request by the United States to resume cooperation in combating the drug trade. Venezuela's government says the US should focus, instead, on reducing demand for drugs and dismiss as useless moves to resume talks on anti-drug efforts. And Venezuela officials insist they’ve made progress in fighting drug trafficking despite a fourfold increase in amount of cocaine 16 passing through that country from Columbia. Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez halted his country’s cooperation with the US three years ago.