The countdown is on. Not for college football, but for Hurricane Gustav. And as the big wind gets closer and stronger, many are already preparing for the storms arrival.
Gustav has been churning up the Caribbean for days and appears to be headed for the Gulf Coast. Right now, storm experts say it could be a category three hurricane, packing winds up to 130 miles an hour, when it makes landfall. That threat has several gulf states making preparations.
Governor Bob Riley might even join Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas governors in skipping the Republican National Convention. "We had planned on going up on Sunday, but with the hurricane in the gulf we're probably going to wait," Riley says.
Forecasters are pretty sure Alabama will see some effect. The only questions are "when" and "how bad".
Those projections are already causing preps here in Jefferson County as well. "Today we decided to spend $6,000 from the EMA budget for some supplies they thought they might need to be prepared for evacuees that might come here," says Jefferson County Commissioner Bobby Humphreys.
Friday is the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. And here on the campus of the University of Alabama is one evacuee who says he's pretty sure of what is going on down there. "They're probably starting to get their hurricane supplies together, plywood and stuff like that, if they're going to board up the house. But you don't want to leave too soon because it could move and go somewhere else," says Tru Livaudais.
Livaudais stayed in Tuscaloosa after Katrina's waters receded. He's even taken a job as a fund-raiser for the School of Engineering. Now, he just hopes the lessons learned from then will be applied to the situation now.
