NEW ORLEANS - A weekend of remembrance in New Orleans one year after Katrina came ashore was unexpectedly punctuated yesterday by fresh anxiety as the season's first named hurricane gained strength in the Caribbean, threatening to make landfall in the United States this week.
Forecasters said that the storm, named Ernesto, could reach category 3 strength by Thursday when it is likely to have passed into the Gulf of Mexico somewhere to the west of southern Florida.
It remained too early, however, to say where it might make landfall in the US.
Strong rain and winds were already buffeting the south-western peninsula of Haiti at the weekend, prompting fears of landslides in countryside that has been heavily deforested.
The Cayman Islands, Jamaica and parts of eastern Cuba were on high alert as the storm moved west-wards.
"It's over nice warm Caribbean waters, and far enough off the coast of Haiti that it is still strengthening now," said Ron Goodman, a forecaster at the National Hurricane Centre in Miami.
In the Cayman Islands, people were rushing to buy emergency supplies before the storm's arrival.
The possibility of the storm marching north through the Gulf of Mexico this week was already getting the attention of officials in New Orleans, where work repairing the damage caused by Katrina is barely done.
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Anxious wait as Ernesto builds in New Orleans
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