“The target right now is exactly where we’re working,” said Don Steadman, missions pastor of Hillcrest Covenant Church of Prairie Village, Kansas. “I was thinking ‘Oh, Great!’ ”
The National Hurricane Center is forecasting that Gustav could strike the Louisiana coast early Tuesday morning and could evolve into a Category 3 hurricane with top winds of 115 mph.
The path of hurricanes has been notoriously difficult to predict, and Gustav has been no exception.
“We just have to batten down the hatches and see what happens,” said Michael Gromer, a member of Hillcrest Covenant who has coordinated the work of thousands of Covenanters here. “Where we have our equipment seems to be OK for now.”
Residents are getting “antsy,” Gromer says. “The good side of what happened (in 2005) is they’re better prepared.”
Plaquemines Parish President William Nungesser has signed a declaration of emergency for the parish and warned that evacuation could begin as early as Saturday. A state of emergency also was declared in neighboring Mississippi.
Current computer models also indicate that Gustav could strike Pascagoula, Mississippi, where Hillcrest first began its work following Katrina. “We’ll just have to see,” Gromer said.
