Gulf Prepares For Isaac’s Arrival[VIDEO]

The top winds of Tropical Storm Isaac are clocked at 65 miles an hour, as the storm targets a wide stretch of the Gulf Coast.

It's expected to make landfall as soon as tomorrow, possibly as a Category 1 hurricane. And that's prompted evacuations along the coast. It also has people stocking up on supplies.

One man in New Orleans who endured Katrina seven years ago says he thinks the city's levee system is in better shape to handle a storm now. Still, carpenter John Corli says he fueled up his truck and his generator.

On the Alabama coast, 72-year-old Billy Cannon was getting ready to evacuate, with several cars packed with family members and four Chihuahuas from a home on a peninsula in Gulf Shores.

He says he thinks the order to evacuate was premature, but that he understands it's a safety precaution.

The storm, which is now blamed for 19 deaths in Haiti, blew past the Florida Keys with little damage. It's promising a drenching but little more than that for Tampa, where the start of official business at the Republican National Convention has been pushed back until tomorrow.

U.S: 78 pct. of Gulf oil production shut by storm

The U.S. government says 78 percent of the oil production in the Gulf of Mexico has been halted in preparation for Tropical Storm Isaac.

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement reports about 1 million barrels per day of oil production has been stopped as companies have evacuated 346 offshore oil and gas production platforms. That's 17 percent of daily U.S. oil production and 6 percent of consumption.

The agency says 2 billion cubic feet of natural gas production is also affected. That's about 3 percent of daily U.S. production and consumption.

Production is expected to quickly resume after the storm passes. The price of U.S. benchmark crude oil fell 68 cents to $95.47 per barrel. Natural gas fell 5 cents to $2.65 per 1,000 cubic feet.