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"Superstorm" hurricane Gustav made landfall on the southern coast of Louisiana on Monday morning, forcing nearly 2 million to flee in the largest-ever such exodus. New Orleans, which is in Gustav¡¯s path, has turned into a ghost town. Some 1.9 million out of 2 million residents have already fled the state, and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said this would ¡°indeed be the largest evacuation in Louisiana history."
In a phone interview with the Chosun Ilbo, Hong Young-seok, a professor of tropical medicine and parasitology at Tulane University in New Orleans, said, "I left home at 6 a.m. last Saturday, drove six hours, and arrived at the home of an elder at a Korean-American church near Jackson, who helped me when hurricane Katrina came." The professor fled on Saturday to near Jackson, Mississippi to avert Gustav.
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A harbinger from Hurricane Gustav arrives on Sunday in New Orleans, Louisiana./Getty Images-AFP
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Gustav has had enormous effects on people's lives. Wal-Mart in the region had already run out of bread, milk and other daily necessities. On Tuesday, torrential rain and strong winds are expected. Because of their terrible experience with Hurricane Katrina, authorities and the general public were behaving more calmly, Hong said. Local residents conducted repeated evacuation exercises, and those who needed vehicles had been asked to register in advance.
New Orleans municipal authorities have employed plenty of large buses to evacuate residents without cars in the poor quarters to other areas since last week.
"When Katrina hit, my house was submerged under 15cm of water and we managed to repair it,¡± Hong said. ¡°Many of the 1,500 Korean residents in New Orleans might consider leaving the city for good if hurricane Gustav causes a lot of damage too.¡±
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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