One Million Flee Gulf Coast as 'Mother of All Storms' Gustav Takes Dead Aim at Louisiana
Gustav Remains a Category 3 Hurricane and Forecasters No Longer Predict Strengthening as Evacuations Near Completion; Storm Remains on Track to Hit New Orleans by Monday; Bush, Cheney Cancel Appearance at GOP Convention; Jerry Lewis Telethon May Also Be Affected
A steady stream of vehicles roll along Interstate 10 out of New Orleans Saturday as part of a massive evacuation of the city and surrounding areas ahead of Hurricane Gustav. As of 6 p.m. EDT Sunday, Gustav remained a Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity after weakening from a Category 4 early Sunday morning, packing sustained winds of 115 miles per hour. But forecasters warned that while Gustav is now unlikely to re-intensify to a Category 4 in the warm waters of the gulf, it would remain a dangerous tornado-spawning hurricane when it makes landfall on Monday. (Photo: Bill Auth/Reuters)
(Updated 6:00 p.m. EDT Sunday, August 31, 2008)
SUNDAY NEWS EXTRA
By Becky Bohrer
The Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS -- With Hurricane Gustav less than 24 hours away from a possible monster hit on New Orleans, the mayor Sunday pleaded with the last of its residents to get out, imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew on those who stay and warned looters they will be sent directly to prison.
The Big Easy increasingly took on the eeriness of a ghost town as thousands heeded a mandatory evacuation order, and police and National Guard troops clamped down on the city to prevent the kind of lawlessness and chaos that followed Katrina three years ago.
"Looters will go directly to jail. You will not get a pass this time," Mayor Ray Nagin said. "You will not have a temporary stay in the city. You will go directly to the Big House."
Most were taking him seriously. The state changed traffic flow so all highway lanes led out of New Orleans, and cars were packed bumper-to-bumper. Stores and restaurants shut down, hotels closed and windows were boarded up. Some who planned to stay changed their mind at the last second, not willing to risk the worst.
As it roared through the Gulf of Mexico taking direct aim at New Orleans, Gustav remained a Category 3 storm late Sunday afternoon after weakening from a Category 4 overnight Saturday, packing sustained winds of 115 miles per hour as of 6 p.m. EDT. Forecasters abandoned their earlier warnings that it could regain Category 4 strength from the gulf's warm waters, but warned that it would remain a dangerous hurricane capable of spawning tornadoes before making landfall as early as Monday.
Long before Mayor Ray Nagin's mandatory evacuation order took effect Sunday morning for the city's vulnerable West Bank, residents were already streaming out of New Orleans and other communities along the Gulf Coast.
Bumper-to-bumper traffic was reported in nearly every direction out of New Orleans, and on Bourbon Street, where the party seemingly never ends, only stragglers toting luggage were sporadically seen on the sidewalks.
Spooked by predictions that Gustav could grow into a Category 5 monster, an estimated one million people fled the Gulf Coast Saturday to get out of the way of a storm taking dead aim at Louisiana.
Nagin gave the mandatory order late Saturday, but all day residents took to buses, trains, planes and cars — clogging roadways leading away from New Orleans, still reeling three years after Hurricane Katrina flooded 80 percent of the city and killed about 1,600 across the region.
Nagin did not immediately order a curfew, which would allow officials to arrest residents if they are not on their property.
Gustav Death Toll Passes 80 in Caribbean
Gustav crossed western Cuba on Saturday and has already killed more than 80 people in the Caribbean. It picked up forward speed upon reaching the gulf and was moving northwest at 18 mph even as its maximum sustained winds weakened to 115 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center's 5 p.m. EDT update. Hurricane-force winds extended 50 miles from the storm's center.
Its center was about 215 miles southeast of the Mississippi River's mouth. The storm could bring a storm surge of up to 14 feet to the coast and rainfall totals of up to 20 inches.
A hurricane warning for over 500 miles of Gulf coast from Cameron, Louisiana, near the Texas border to the Alabama-Florida state line, meaning hurricane conditions are expected there within 24 hours. Alabama Governor Bob Riley issued a mandatory evacuation order Sunday for some coastal areas of Mobile and Baldwin counties.
In New Orleans, Nagin used stark language to urge residents to get out of the city, calling Gustav the "the mother of all storms."
"This is the real deal, not a test," Nagin said as he issued the evacuation order Saturday night. "For everyone thinking they can ride this storm out, I have news for you: that will be one of the biggest mistakes you can make in your life."
Forecasters were slightly less dire in their predictions, saying the storm should make landfall somewhere between western Mississippi and East Texas, where evacuations were also under way. It's too early to know whether New Orleans will take another direct hit, they said, but city officials weren't taking any chances.
Strengthing of New Orleans Levees Unfinished
Levee building on the city's west bank was incomplete, Nagin said. A storm surge of 15 to 20 feet would pour through canals and flood the neighborhood and neighboring Jefferson Parish, he said.
Nagin estimated that about half the population had left by Saturday night and admitted officials were worried that some die-hards would try to stay in town. Even before the evacuation order, hotels closed, and the airport prepared to follow suit.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff planned to travel to Louisiana on Sunday to observe preparations. Also, likely GOP presidential nominee John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, are traveling to Mississippi on Sunday to check on people getting prepared.
Long Lines at Terminal for Buses to Get Out of the City. . .
As part of the evacuation plan New Orleans developed after Katrina, residents who had no other way to get out of the city waited on lines that snaked for more than a mile through the parking lot of the city's main transit terminal. From there, they were boarding buses bound for shelters in north Louisiana. The city expects to move out about 30,000 such residents by Sunday.
"I don't like it," said Joseph Jones Jr., 61, who draped a towel over his head to block the blazing sun. "Going someplace you don't know, people you don't know. And then when you come back, is your house going to be OK?"
Others led children or pushed strollers with one hand and pulled luggage with the other. Volunteers handed out bottled water, and medics were nearby in case people became sick from the heat.
Unlike Katrina, when thousands took refuge inside the Superdome, there will be no "last resort" shelter. "You will be on your own," Nagin said.
About 1,500 National Guard troops were in the region, and soldiers were expected to help augment about 1,400 New Orleans police officers in helping patrol and secure the city.
. . .But Some Stubbornly Refuse to Leave
Still, there were a few holdouts.
"You'd be a moron" not to be worried about the storm, Inez Douglas said at Johnny White's Sports Bar & Grill. But while she was keeping an eye on the storm, she wasn't going anywhere.
Standing outside his restaurant in the city's Faubourg Marigny district, Dale DeBruyne prepared for Gustav the way he did for Katrina — stubbornly.
"I'm not leaving," he said.
DeBruyne, 52, said his house was stocked with storm supplies, including generators.
"I stayed for Katrina," he said, "and I'll stay again."
Many residents said the early stage of the evacuation was more orderly than Katrina, although a plan to electronically log and track evacuees with a bar code system failed and was aborted to keep the buses moving. Officials said information on evacuees would be taken when they reached their destinations.
Advocates criticized the decision not to establish a shelter, warning that day laborers and the poorest residents would fall through the cracks.
About two dozen Hispanic men gathered under oak trees near Claiborne Avenue. They were wary of boarding any bus, even though a city spokesman said no identity papers would be required.
"The problem is," said Pictor Soto, 44, of Peru, "there will be immigration people there and we're all undocumented."
Farther west, where Gustav appeared more likely to make landfall, National Guard troops were also being sent to Lake Charles.
Evacuations Ordered for Other Coastal Regions
The National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane watch for Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and part of Texas, meaning hurricane conditions are possible within 36 hours.
Two East Texas counties also issued mandatory evacuation orders, and authorities in Mississippi began evacuating the mentally ill and aged from facilities along the coast.
National Guard soldiers on Mississippi's coast were going door-to-door to alert thousands of families still living in FEMA trailers and cottages after Katrina that they should be prepared to evacuate Sunday.
In Alabama, shelters were opened and 3,000 National Guard personnel assembled to help evacuees from Mississippi and Louisiana. "If we don't get the wind and rain, we stand ready to help them," Gov. Bob Riley said.
Obama Says Storm Preparations Good; McCain to Go to Mississippi
In Dublin, Ohio, Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama took time out from campaigning Saturday for briefings by telephone with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and FEMA officials about Gustav. Obama told reporters that cooperation between the local and federal government “appears to be good” but he will continue to monitor it.
“The main message,” Obama said, “is for the public in those areas that are potentially in danger to take the evacuation seriously, even if you have ridden out this storm before, even if you think that it may pass over, even if you think you can wait until the last minute, this is going to be potentially very, very serious.”
“This could be gigantic in terms of in its consequences,” said Obama’s running mate, Joe Biden, who stood at his side. “Ride out of town, get out of town. Do what the governor is suggesting.”
For his part, Republican presidential candidate John McCain voiced concern for Gulf Coast residents fleeing from Gustav and made plans to visit Mississippi even as he reintroduced running mate Sarah Palin to a raucous crowd at a campiang rally in Pennsylvania.
"I would like, obviously, to keep in our thoughts and prayers the people on the Gulf Coast, especially in New Orleans, that are threatened by this terrible natural disaster of a hurricane," said McCain, who has been highly critical of the Bush administration's response to Katrina three years ago.
Aides said McCain and his wife Cindy planned to join Palin in traveling to Jackson, Mississippi Sunday at the invitation of Governor Haley Barbour because of concerns about people threatened by the storm.
Bush, Cheney Cancel Appearance at GOP Convention; First-Night Schedule Scrapped
All five Gulf Coast GOP governors -- Barbour, Jindahl, Rick Perry of Texas, Robert Riley of Alabama and Charlie Crist of Florida -- have canceled plans to attend the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, which is scheduled to open on Monday.
Likewise have President Bush and Vice President Cheney, the White House announced late Sunday morning.
And GOP convention planners -- on direct orders from McCain -- scrapped virtually the entire opening-night convention schedule, except for the mandatory acceptance of the convention rules and the party platform.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters that neither official would attend the GOP convention, but that First Lady Laura Bush is still planning to attend.
Bush spoke this morning with Nagin to let him know that he was "getting ready to go through this with him again," Perino said. The mayor told the president the forecast didn't look good but that he was pleased with the coordination with top federal officials, she added.
With memories still vivid of the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, the possibility of serious damage threatened to cast a pall over the convention. Depending on the path the storm takes, it could also affect the plans of governors Bob Riley of Alabama, Rick Perry of Texas and Charlie Crist of Florida.
Bush, who was scheduled to address the convention on Monday, called Gulf Coast governors on Saturday and conferred with federal officials to keep a close watch on developments, said spokesman Scott Stanzel.
The president has been widely criticized for the way the federal government dealt with Katrina and its aftermath and his job-approval ratings have suffered ever since.
But the convention was still on schedule -- although Bush may address the delegates via satellite from the White House instead of in person as originally planned.
"There are no plans for any postponement," said Mike Miller, director of convention operations. "We plan to start when we're going to start and end when we're going to end.
Jerry Lewis Telethon May Also Be Affected
Attention on Gustav may also cast a shadow over the annual Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon. The 21 1/2-hour fundraiser for the Muscular Dystrophy Association may lose many of its 180 affiliate stations to hurricane coverage, but will go on as scheduled at 9 p.m. EDT Sunday night.
In the immediate aftermath of Katrina, Lewis opened his 2005 telethon with appeals not only for the MDA, but also for the hurricane relief efforts of the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army. There was no word as of Sunday afternoon, however, if there were plans for Lewis to do so again this year.
(Associated Press reporters Tom Raum and Beth Fouhy contributed to this report.)
# # #
Volume III, Number 49
Special Report Copyright 2008, The Associated Press.
The 'Skeeter Bites Report Copyright 2008, Skeeter Sanders. All rights reserved.
(Updated 6:00 p.m. EDT Sunday, August 31, 2008)
SUNDAY NEWS EXTRA
By Becky Bohrer
The Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS -- With Hurricane Gustav less than 24 hours away from a possible monster hit on New Orleans, the mayor Sunday pleaded with the last of its residents to get out, imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew on those who stay and warned looters they will be sent directly to prison.
The Big Easy increasingly took on the eeriness of a ghost town as thousands heeded a mandatory evacuation order, and police and National Guard troops clamped down on the city to prevent the kind of lawlessness and chaos that followed Katrina three years ago.
"Looters will go directly to jail. You will not get a pass this time," Mayor Ray Nagin said. "You will not have a temporary stay in the city. You will go directly to the Big House."
Most were taking him seriously. The state changed traffic flow so all highway lanes led out of New Orleans, and cars were packed bumper-to-bumper. Stores and restaurants shut down, hotels closed and windows were boarded up. Some who planned to stay changed their mind at the last second, not willing to risk the worst.
As it roared through the Gulf of Mexico taking direct aim at New Orleans, Gustav remained a Category 3 storm late Sunday afternoon after weakening from a Category 4 overnight Saturday, packing sustained winds of 115 miles per hour as of 6 p.m. EDT. Forecasters abandoned their earlier warnings that it could regain Category 4 strength from the gulf's warm waters, but warned that it would remain a dangerous hurricane capable of spawning tornadoes before making landfall as early as Monday.
Long before Mayor Ray Nagin's mandatory evacuation order took effect Sunday morning for the city's vulnerable West Bank, residents were already streaming out of New Orleans and other communities along the Gulf Coast.
Bumper-to-bumper traffic was reported in nearly every direction out of New Orleans, and on Bourbon Street, where the party seemingly never ends, only stragglers toting luggage were sporadically seen on the sidewalks.
Spooked by predictions that Gustav could grow into a Category 5 monster, an estimated one million people fled the Gulf Coast Saturday to get out of the way of a storm taking dead aim at Louisiana.
Nagin gave the mandatory order late Saturday, but all day residents took to buses, trains, planes and cars — clogging roadways leading away from New Orleans, still reeling three years after Hurricane Katrina flooded 80 percent of the city and killed about 1,600 across the region.
Nagin did not immediately order a curfew, which would allow officials to arrest residents if they are not on their property.
Gustav Death Toll Passes 80 in Caribbean
Gustav crossed western Cuba on Saturday and has already killed more than 80 people in the Caribbean. It picked up forward speed upon reaching the gulf and was moving northwest at 18 mph even as its maximum sustained winds weakened to 115 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center's 5 p.m. EDT update. Hurricane-force winds extended 50 miles from the storm's center.
Its center was about 215 miles southeast of the Mississippi River's mouth. The storm could bring a storm surge of up to 14 feet to the coast and rainfall totals of up to 20 inches.
A hurricane warning for over 500 miles of Gulf coast from Cameron, Louisiana, near the Texas border to the Alabama-Florida state line, meaning hurricane conditions are expected there within 24 hours. Alabama Governor Bob Riley issued a mandatory evacuation order Sunday for some coastal areas of Mobile and Baldwin counties.
In New Orleans, Nagin used stark language to urge residents to get out of the city, calling Gustav the "the mother of all storms."
"This is the real deal, not a test," Nagin said as he issued the evacuation order Saturday night. "For everyone thinking they can ride this storm out, I have news for you: that will be one of the biggest mistakes you can make in your life."
Forecasters were slightly less dire in their predictions, saying the storm should make landfall somewhere between western Mississippi and East Texas, where evacuations were also under way. It's too early to know whether New Orleans will take another direct hit, they said, but city officials weren't taking any chances.
Strengthing of New Orleans Levees Unfinished
Levee building on the city's west bank was incomplete, Nagin said. A storm surge of 15 to 20 feet would pour through canals and flood the neighborhood and neighboring Jefferson Parish, he said.
Nagin estimated that about half the population had left by Saturday night and admitted officials were worried that some die-hards would try to stay in town. Even before the evacuation order, hotels closed, and the airport prepared to follow suit.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff planned to travel to Louisiana on Sunday to observe preparations. Also, likely GOP presidential nominee John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, are traveling to Mississippi on Sunday to check on people getting prepared.
Long Lines at Terminal for Buses to Get Out of the City. . .
As part of the evacuation plan New Orleans developed after Katrina, residents who had no other way to get out of the city waited on lines that snaked for more than a mile through the parking lot of the city's main transit terminal. From there, they were boarding buses bound for shelters in north Louisiana. The city expects to move out about 30,000 such residents by Sunday.
"I don't like it," said Joseph Jones Jr., 61, who draped a towel over his head to block the blazing sun. "Going someplace you don't know, people you don't know. And then when you come back, is your house going to be OK?"
Others led children or pushed strollers with one hand and pulled luggage with the other. Volunteers handed out bottled water, and medics were nearby in case people became sick from the heat.
Unlike Katrina, when thousands took refuge inside the Superdome, there will be no "last resort" shelter. "You will be on your own," Nagin said.
About 1,500 National Guard troops were in the region, and soldiers were expected to help augment about 1,400 New Orleans police officers in helping patrol and secure the city.
. . .But Some Stubbornly Refuse to Leave
Still, there were a few holdouts.
"You'd be a moron" not to be worried about the storm, Inez Douglas said at Johnny White's Sports Bar & Grill. But while she was keeping an eye on the storm, she wasn't going anywhere.
Standing outside his restaurant in the city's Faubourg Marigny district, Dale DeBruyne prepared for Gustav the way he did for Katrina — stubbornly.
"I'm not leaving," he said.
DeBruyne, 52, said his house was stocked with storm supplies, including generators.
"I stayed for Katrina," he said, "and I'll stay again."
Many residents said the early stage of the evacuation was more orderly than Katrina, although a plan to electronically log and track evacuees with a bar code system failed and was aborted to keep the buses moving. Officials said information on evacuees would be taken when they reached their destinations.
Advocates criticized the decision not to establish a shelter, warning that day laborers and the poorest residents would fall through the cracks.
About two dozen Hispanic men gathered under oak trees near Claiborne Avenue. They were wary of boarding any bus, even though a city spokesman said no identity papers would be required.
"The problem is," said Pictor Soto, 44, of Peru, "there will be immigration people there and we're all undocumented."
Farther west, where Gustav appeared more likely to make landfall, National Guard troops were also being sent to Lake Charles.
Evacuations Ordered for Other Coastal Regions
The National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane watch for Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and part of Texas, meaning hurricane conditions are possible within 36 hours.
Two East Texas counties also issued mandatory evacuation orders, and authorities in Mississippi began evacuating the mentally ill and aged from facilities along the coast.
National Guard soldiers on Mississippi's coast were going door-to-door to alert thousands of families still living in FEMA trailers and cottages after Katrina that they should be prepared to evacuate Sunday.
In Alabama, shelters were opened and 3,000 National Guard personnel assembled to help evacuees from Mississippi and Louisiana. "If we don't get the wind and rain, we stand ready to help them," Gov. Bob Riley said.
Obama Says Storm Preparations Good; McCain to Go to Mississippi
In Dublin, Ohio, Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama took time out from campaigning Saturday for briefings by telephone with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and FEMA officials about Gustav. Obama told reporters that cooperation between the local and federal government “appears to be good” but he will continue to monitor it.
“The main message,” Obama said, “is for the public in those areas that are potentially in danger to take the evacuation seriously, even if you have ridden out this storm before, even if you think that it may pass over, even if you think you can wait until the last minute, this is going to be potentially very, very serious.”
“This could be gigantic in terms of in its consequences,” said Obama’s running mate, Joe Biden, who stood at his side. “Ride out of town, get out of town. Do what the governor is suggesting.”
For his part, Republican presidential candidate John McCain voiced concern for Gulf Coast residents fleeing from Gustav and made plans to visit Mississippi even as he reintroduced running mate Sarah Palin to a raucous crowd at a campiang rally in Pennsylvania.
"I would like, obviously, to keep in our thoughts and prayers the people on the Gulf Coast, especially in New Orleans, that are threatened by this terrible natural disaster of a hurricane," said McCain, who has been highly critical of the Bush administration's response to Katrina three years ago.
Aides said McCain and his wife Cindy planned to join Palin in traveling to Jackson, Mississippi Sunday at the invitation of Governor Haley Barbour because of concerns about people threatened by the storm.
Bush, Cheney Cancel Appearance at GOP Convention; First-Night Schedule Scrapped
All five Gulf Coast GOP governors -- Barbour, Jindahl, Rick Perry of Texas, Robert Riley of Alabama and Charlie Crist of Florida -- have canceled plans to attend the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, which is scheduled to open on Monday.
Likewise have President Bush and Vice President Cheney, the White House announced late Sunday morning.
And GOP convention planners -- on direct orders from McCain -- scrapped virtually the entire opening-night convention schedule, except for the mandatory acceptance of the convention rules and the party platform.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters that neither official would attend the GOP convention, but that First Lady Laura Bush is still planning to attend.
Bush spoke this morning with Nagin to let him know that he was "getting ready to go through this with him again," Perino said. The mayor told the president the forecast didn't look good but that he was pleased with the coordination with top federal officials, she added.
With memories still vivid of the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, the possibility of serious damage threatened to cast a pall over the convention. Depending on the path the storm takes, it could also affect the plans of governors Bob Riley of Alabama, Rick Perry of Texas and Charlie Crist of Florida.
Bush, who was scheduled to address the convention on Monday, called Gulf Coast governors on Saturday and conferred with federal officials to keep a close watch on developments, said spokesman Scott Stanzel.
The president has been widely criticized for the way the federal government dealt with Katrina and its aftermath and his job-approval ratings have suffered ever since.
But the convention was still on schedule -- although Bush may address the delegates via satellite from the White House instead of in person as originally planned.
"There are no plans for any postponement," said Mike Miller, director of convention operations. "We plan to start when we're going to start and end when we're going to end.
Jerry Lewis Telethon May Also Be Affected
Attention on Gustav may also cast a shadow over the annual Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon. The 21 1/2-hour fundraiser for the Muscular Dystrophy Association may lose many of its 180 affiliate stations to hurricane coverage, but will go on as scheduled at 9 p.m. EDT Sunday night.
In the immediate aftermath of Katrina, Lewis opened his 2005 telethon with appeals not only for the MDA, but also for the hurricane relief efforts of the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army. There was no word as of Sunday afternoon, however, if there were plans for Lewis to do so again this year.
(Associated Press reporters Tom Raum and Beth Fouhy contributed to this report.)
# # #
Volume III, Number 49
Special Report Copyright 2008, The Associated Press.
The 'Skeeter Bites Report Copyright 2008, Skeeter Sanders. All rights reserved.
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