Tropical Storm Karen forms in the Gulf of Mexico, targets US coast

New Orleans: Preparations began yesterday along the central Gulf Coast as newly formed Tropical Storm Karen threatened to become the first named tropical system to menace the United States this year.

Hurricane and tropical storm watches were posted from southeast Louisiana to Florida and some oil and gas platforms in the storm's projected path were being secured and evacuated.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Karen was about 430 miles (695 km) south of the mouth of the Mississippi River on Thursday afternoon and had maximum sustained winds of 65 mph (100 kph).

The hurricane watch was in effect from Grand Isle, La., to Indian Pass in the Florida Panhandle. A tropical storm watch also was in effect for parts of the Louisiana coast west of Grand Isle, including the New Orleans area.

Karen was moving north-northwest at 12 mph (19 kph). It could be at or near hurricane strength by today before approaching the northern Gulf Coast a day later, forecasters said.

While meteorologists said it was too soon to predict the storm's ultimate intensity, they said it could weaken a bit as it approaches the coast over the weekend.

"Our forecast calls for it to be right around the border of a hurricane and a tropical storm," said David Zelinsky, a hurricane center meteorologist.

Whether a weak hurricane or strong tropical storm, Karen's effects are expected to be largely the same: heavy rain and the potential for similar storm surge.

Grand Isle Mayor David Camardelle, whose barrier island community about 60 miles south of New Orleans is often the first to order an evacuation in the face of a tropical weather system, said the town is making sure its 10 pump stations are ready. He is encouraging residents and clean out drainage culverts and ditches in anticipation of possible heavy rain and high tides.

Otherwise, residents were monitoring the storm and hoping to dodge the foul weather.

"Hopefully, this one is just a little rain event," said Camardelle "We don't need a big storm coming at us this late in the season."

Zelinsky said residents in the warning areas should listen to their local emergency managers for advisories. "Now is the time to begin making preparations," Zelinsky said.

Forecasters said a cold front approaching from the northwest was expected to turn Karen to the northeast, away from the Louisiana coast and more toward the Florida Panhandle or coastal Alabama. But the timing of the front's arrival over the weekend was uncertain.

Pope Francis to visit namesake's shrine at Assisi

 

There is an air of anticipation in the central Italian town of Assisi ahead of the Pope's visit

Pope Francis will on Friday travel to the Umbrian hillside town of Assisi to pray at the shrine of the 13th Century saint whose name he adopted.

Francis will be accompanied by eight cardinals handpicked to help him shape a radical programme of reform for the Vatican.

He has said he wants today's Catholic Church to resemble Francis of Assisi's "church of the poor".
He wants to use abandoned monasteries and convents to house refugees.
And he says he wants to see a less hierarchical church which is less centred on the Vatican.
Candid
 
Two days ago Pope Francis told Italian newspaper La Repubblica his namesake had "longed for a poor Church that looked after others, accepted monetary help and used it to help others with no thought of itself".
"Eight hundred years have passed and times have changed, but the ideal of a missionary and poor Church is still more than valid," he said.

During his day-long "pilgrimage" to Assisi, the Pope is expected to meet groups of poor, sick and disabled people who are being looked after by Catholic orders or charities.
St Francis of Assisi is the patron saint of Italy.

Known in Italian as Il Poverello, or the Poor One, he was the son of a wealthy local cloth merchant who scandalised his family when he reached the age of 25 by dumping his expensive clothing and living in sackcloth, ministering to the poor for the rest of his life.

Pope Francis has become known for his candid views - unlike anything heard coming out of the Vatican during recent papacies, says the BBC's David Willey in Rome.
On Thursday, he called the deaths of scores of African migrants when a boat sank off the Italian island of Lampedusa a "disgrace".