Gimme shelter: Tropical Storm Ernesto did less damage to the Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, today than Paris Hilton’s recent vow to remain celibate did to the straight males of the world. The storm rolled over the controversial base earlier this morning in a direct hit that didn’t hurt too much.

According to a press release hastily dispatched by the Department of Defense, the base experienced on 33-knot winds with gusts up to 38 knots, or a 40-50 mph range, and only had 2.1 inches of rain fall on the detainee camp.

“We were prepared,” base spokeswoman Satcey Byington said. “Most people sheltered in place and came out when the ‘all clear’ sounded this morning at about 10:30.”

Does that mean the guys in organge jump suits and face masks just curled up in their chain-link cubes and hunkered down? Strangely, the release did not mention the hundred-odd remaining detainees, though it did hail the shelter-in-place talents of the 7,000 military personnel.

Then, in a move that did little to quell the fears of those of us in danger of being molesto’d by Ernesto tomorrow, the DoD said that the military was already cooperating with the Federal Emergency Management Agency on delivering assistance in the storm’s aftermath.

DoD is working with FEMA experts to prepare for any eventuality. “We have the defense coordinating officer and the defense coordinating element from FEMA Region 4 deployed to the State Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee, Fla.,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said today. DoD also has representatives at the Regional Response Coordination Center in Atlanta.

“There has also been a determination that should there need to be logistical staging, that Fort Rucker and Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama and Homestead Air Reserve Base and Jacksonville Naval Air Station in Florida will serve as FEMA logistical staging areas,” Whitman said.

Well, I guess that’s better than having ice trucks in Maryland, but Miami is still a 10-hour drive from Tallahassee, a good seven-hour hike from Jacksonville, and don’t mention Alabama — and that’s with clear, dry roadways and working traffic signals.

Anyway, a co-worker reports that Winn-Dixie is out of water already as of her lunch break, and long lines have formed for gasoline. And though we’re being told there’s no need to panic, people are already getting testy over who gets the last loaf of Wonder Bread.

Kind of reminds me of how Michael Brown and Michael Chertoff and George Bush were “ready” for Katrina’s landfall in New Orleans last year and the job they all did. On the eve of Ernesto, Jon and Trish and I think it might be interesting to mine the archives and revisit some of the low lights of Bushco’s performance a year ago.

Stayed tuned for a look back at the “heckuva job” done by our goverment in response to the nation’s worse natural disaster.