Key West's apparent good fortune, however, did little to ease others' anxiety as the storm grew more powerful. In the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans, where neck-high floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina have now receded, the National Guard Tuesday was warning a handful of homeowners who had sneaked into the city to check on their houses that it was time to get out again.
"We are not forcing them, but we will do anything to convince them to get out of here," said Sgt. Timothy Eagle of the Oregon National Guard, who cruised the neighborhood in a Humvee. "We don't want to come back for the body."
Perhaps the worst off, at least psychologically, are the thousands of Katrina evacuees in Texas who are now being "re-traumatized" by a second evacuation.
"You can imagine what's going on in people's minds who lost virtually everything," said Howard B. Smith, associate dean of the College of Education and Counseling at South Dakota State University and coordinator of Red Cross mental health services.
A few evacuees Tuesday began boarding planes bound for Fort Chaffee in Arkansas, a state that will accept 4,000 displaced residents, while an additional 3,000 will be going to Tennessee. One thousand may be going to Nebraska. But some evacuees were unwilling to be uprooted again.
Perry urged residents to fill their vehicles with gasoline, gather personal and financial records, stock up on a three-month supply of needed medications and emergency provisions such as flashlights, water and nonperishable food; and find places to stay inland.
Advance work in Louisiana, where levees are still being repaired and 40 percent of the pumps in New Orleans still do not work, included the staging of 500 buses in case the storm edged toward the city, addressing a lack of transportation that left the city with no choice but to house tens of thousands of people in squalor at the Louisiana Superdome and the convention center in the days after Katrina.
Roig-Franzia reported from New Orleans. Coates reported from Key West. Deane reported from Washington.
Rita Churns Toward Texas