Gonu killed 15

And badly flooded areas:

MUSCAT, Oman — Semi-trucks were trapped in flooded highways here Thursday after Cyclone Gonu battered Oman's coast on its path toward the world's most important crude oil tanker route. At least 15 storm-related deaths were reported.

But as the cyclone — a rarity in the Middle East — headed from Oman to the southeastern Iranian coast, it continued to lose steam, dropping off to tropical storm strength early Thursday, according to the U.S. military's Joint Typhoon Warning Center.

The center predicted Gonu would make landfall on the southeastern Iranian coast late Thursday. But it was likely to spare Iran's offshore oil installations that lie more than 120 miles to the west, the center and oil officials said.

But look at this:

At least 12 people were killed from the storm in Oman, including members of police rescue squads, and others were reported missing, said Oman Royal Police spokesman Abdullah al-Harthi. He did not provide further details.

POLICE RESCUE squads. Are you listening, FEMA? Oman shows us how to work during a hurricane.

Iran's state broadcasting company said on its website that some small villages in Sistan and Baluchistan province, on the Gulf of Oman, were still encircled by floods and authorities used helicopters to drop emergency supplies to them.

The storm affected power and telephone lines elsewhere in the province, but caused no major damage, provincial governor Habibollah Dehmardeh told the official IRNA news agency.

Even Iran has helicopters dropping supplies to cutoff cities.

[Gonu] is believed to be the strongest cyclone here since record-keeping started in 1945.

Even though these countries haven't dealt with such an unusual threat, look at how they worked to contain the damage. Maybe Bush will learn.... nah, forget it. We gotta wait until his Category 5 administration is out of office before we can clean up the mess.

(Updating from this post.)