RPT-Cuba, Haiti and Texas hard hit in hurricane season

(Repeats for wider distribution)

By Jim Loney

MIAMI, Nov 14 (Reuters) - The 2008 Atlantic hurricane season tested the New Orleans levees rebuilt after Katrina, hammered the Texas oilpatch and killed 800 in Haiti, but may be best remembered as one of the worst in Cuba's history.

Three "major" hurricanes of Category 3 or higher, Gustav, Ike and Paloma, caused an estimated $10 billion damage in the Communist-ruled Caribbean island, where they damaged nearly half a million homes and flattened sugar cane and tobacco fields.

With about two weeks remaining in the six-month season, 16 cyclones have formed -- eight tropical storms and eight hurricanes -- making it the busiest Atlantic season since the record-breaker of 2005, which produced 28.

The official season ends on Nov. 30 and chances for another storm are ebbing. But three years ago, Tropical Storm Zeta formed on Dec. 30 and lasted into January.

"The hurricane season's over for the United States, that's for sure," AccuWeather forecaster Joe Bastardi said.

"It's the natural endgame," he said, citing cooling sea surface temperatures, strong upper-levels winds and a drier atmosphere, which all work against hurricane formation. "You might get something developing in the middle of nowhere."

But 2008 will go down in the record books as another in a string of exceptionally busy seasons. The average hurricane season produces about 10 storms, of which six become hurricanes.

In 1995, researchers believe, the Atlantic basin entered a new cycle of prolific hurricane production that could last anywhere from 25 to 40 years.

For impoverished and nearly treeless Haiti, the 2008 season brought a rapid succession of soggy storms -- Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike -- and deadly floods. Gonaives, the seaside city where 3,000 were killed by Tropical Storm Jeanne in 2004, was buried in a sea of mud.

The storms triggered a global call for aid for the poorest country in the Americas and proved another setback for a government still reeling from April riots sparked by skyrocketing food prices.

After crushing Haiti, Gustav cranked up to Category 4 over Cuba's west end and took dead aim at New Orleans, which was quickly abandoned by residents with fresh memories of Katrina, the 2005 hurricane that killed 1,500 people and caused $80 billion damage across the U.S. Gulf coast.

RECORD WIND

The levees, rebuilt but untested since Katrina, cracked and leaked but did not break when a weakened Gustav hit shore far enough west of the city to spare the floodwalls a direct hit.

Gustav and Ike disrupted oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico, triggering widespread shortages and long lines at gas pumps across the U.S. South.