Tropical storm Gustav is projected to arrive in the Gulf of Mexico by 2 p.m. Sunday, according to the National Hurricane Center. Landfall is expected Tuesday morning. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour declared a state of emergency Thursday afternoon.
Associate professor of meteorology Michael Brown said the storm tracking model has shifted west from New Orleans. He expects it to change over the next few days.
“We are still five days away from a U.S. landfall,” he said. “I would expect anywhere from Houston, Texas to Panama, Fla. It is still a threat for [the Gulf Coast] area.”
Assistant geosciences professor Grady Dixon said storm tracking models typically change after three days.
“Most of the commonly used computer models are in pretty good agreement on the approximate path,” he said, “Nevertheless, it is not out of the question for the path and or the speed to change dramatically.”
Brown said local weather risks are dependent on how strong the storm is during landfall.
“We could see some 70 mph winds as we saw during Hurricane Katrina,” he said. “In this month we have received eight inches of rain, which is six more than we usually get. Trees could become more vulnerable to the wind.”
Dixon said every students should make their own decisions concerning traveling this weekend.
“I think it would be unwise to travel to the Coast this weekend as mass evacuations will likely cause severe congestion all across the Gulf Coast,” he said. “Even if someone plans on returning to Starkville before the storm arrives, the trip would likely be expensive, frustrating and dangerous.”
Executive director of Mississippi Emergency Management Agency Mike Womack said the agency have been reviewing the state emergency plans during the last several.
“Four battalions of soldiers have been moved to the Coast to notify people in travel trailers that they need to evacuate,” he said.
Womack said people should find what they need for three days and then leave the rest on the shelf for others.
“People shouldn’t be concerned,” he said. “They’ll get their supplies.”
Associate dean of students Thomas Bourgeois said it is best for students to stay where they are the safest.
“Any plan that involves driving douy this weekend is not a good idea,” he said. “If people are making plans to travel to the beach for the weekend, folks need to keep up with where the storm is.”
Bourgeois said students should develop a plan on how to communicate with their parents besides using cell phones.
“There were many incidents where parents traveled here, and the children went to where the parents were at, only to find a stump of a house and their parents missing,” he said.
Sophomore art major Beth Rhodes said she served as a summer missionary in New Orleans at the Baptist Friendship House.
“There are still people living in tents because of Hurricane Katrina,” she said. “The people at the center and my church in Gulfport helped a girl who lived in East New Orleans right next to Lake Ponchartrain by refurnishing her house.”
Bourgeois said commonsense is always the best form of planning.
“Students need to have contingency plans if they are considering leaving and traveling back to the campus for the weekend,” he said. “You can control yourself but not the environment you are entering into.”
Assistant director of university relations Bennet George said text messaging, mass e-mails, instant messaging, the emergency page, the loud speakers and campus news media will be used to warn students.
“We will use every method we can use to send emergency messages out to students,” he said. “We can send messages through Facebook if we have to.”
Bourgeois said Maroon Alerts are good, but students should not only be relying on their cell phone to receive “Students should not only rely on their cell phones to receive alerts,” he said. “There a lot of things to do think about when planning for occasions like these.”