Storm Chris weakens, still seen becoming hurricane

By Michael Christie

MIAMI (Reuters) – Tropical Storm Chris weakened on
Wednesday but still threatened to become the first hurricane of
2006, aimed at U.S. oil facilities in the Gulf of Mexico where
monster storms like Katrina wreaked havoc last year, or
hurricane magnet Florida.

The Bahamas issued a hurricane watch for the Turks and
Caicos islands and for the southeastern Bahamas, meaning
hurricane conditions could be expected within 36 hours, the
U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

The storm’s forecast path, although subject to considerable
uncertainty, could take it into the Gulf early on Monday and
potentially again threaten New Orleans, the fabled home of jazz
that was decimated when Katrina broke its protective levees.

Maximum sustained winds of the third tropical cyclone of
2006 dropped to 60 miles per hour (95 km per hour), from 65 mph
(100 kph) by 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT), as the storm took a track
that would take it north of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

Nazario Lugo, director of the Puerto Rico State Emergency
Management Agency, said the storm’s strongest gusts should not
reach land.

“The real danger has passed us,” Lugo told reporters in the
U.S. territory, where 420 emergency shelters were put on alert
and visits by four cruise ships were canceled.

Experts have predicted this year could see another active
Atlantic hurricane season with several major storms though
nothing like the record number seen in 2005.

The Miami-based hurricane center said in a bulletin that
Chris had become a little more disorganized, and it could take
a little longer to strengthen into a hurricane than earlier
thought. Tropical storms becomes hurricanes once their
sustained winds reach 74 mph (119 kph).

Oil and natural gas prices rose on the threat to drilling
platforms and exploration rigs in the Gulf, where the waters
are especially warm — as they were last year when they fueled
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita before they slammed into the
Louisiana and Texas coastlines.

Last year’s hurricanes shut a quarter of U.S. crude output
and sent oil prices to record highs.

“The current forecast track has the storm on a path not
that dissimilar to last year’s Hurricane Katrina,” said Tim
Evans, an energy analyst at Citigroup.

In New Orleans, which was flooded by Katrina at the end of
August 2005, residents cast a wary eye toward Chris and put the
final touches on an evacuation plan that could empty the city.

“I’m scared to go through another one,” said forklift
driver Inos Jones, 50, who stayed through Katrina until he was
rescued. “If they have another hurricane, you can just shut
Louisiana for good.”

The storm was located 115 miles north-northeast of St.
Thomas by late afternoon, the hurricane center said, and it was
moving west-northwest at 10 mph (17 kph).

Forecasters have predicted up to 17 tropical storms and
hurricanes this year. Last year saw a record 28, including
Katrina, the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.
Katrina killed more than 1,300 people.

(Additional reporting by Gelu Sulugiuc in New York, Peter
Henderson in New Orleans and Enrique Martel in San Juan)