Gustav grows back into hurricane

GEORGE TOWN-Gustav strengthened back into a hurricane in the warm Caribbean on Friday as it left flooded Jamaica and churned toward the Cayman Islands, headed for the Gulf of Mexico on the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's deadly strike on New Orleans.The storm, which killed at least 72 people in the Caribbean, plowed toward superheated waters south of Cuba where it could absorb enough energy to strengthen into a major hurricane before ripping through the heavy concentration of U.S. oil and natural gas platforms off Louisiana.New Orleans was still squarely in the storm's sights. The most likely long-range track forecast had it going ashore west of the city on Tuesday morning as a Category 3 storm on the five-stage Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity.Oil prices climbed in the face of Gustav's threat to the 4,000 Gulf platforms that produce a quarter of U.S. oil and 15 percent of its natural gas. Energy companies evacuated offshore workers and shut production in preparation for the most serious storm since the devastating 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. "The cyclone will have more than 24 hours over the very warm waters of the northwestern Caribbean...so strengthening seems imminent and could even be rapid," the National Hurricane Center said.The Miami-based hurricane center said Gustav strengthened back into a Category 1 hurricane as it neared the wealthy Cayman Islands on Friday and could grow into at least a Category 3 storm before reaching western Cuba on Saturday.By midafternoon, Gustav was 125 miles east-southeast of Grand Cayman Island and was moving west-northwest at 11 mph (19 km per hour).Its top sustained winds had strengthened to 75 mph (120 kph) and were projected to rise to 120 mph (193 kph) within 72 hours.

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As in the days of Noah...