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Preparing for Mass Exodus As Gustav Gathers Strength
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New Orleans officials were prepared to order the evacuation of all 325,000 city residents, providing transportation for 30,000 people.
"Right now, all the models say it is coming toward us," Nagin told PBS's "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer." "Anything above a Category 2 storm, we're evacuating everybody out of the city, and we have buses, trains and planes lined up to accomplish that."
President Bush has been receiving regular updates on the approaching storm from officials at the Homeland Security Department and FEMA, White House press secretary Dana Perino said.
"He's involved, engaged, and getting briefings and working to make sure that the federal assistance is there, but that obviously state and local authorities have responsibilities," Perino said. "And by all accounts and purposes, they are following through on those."
Nagin left the Democratic convention in Denver early, and Jindal has canceled plans to attend the GOP convention.
Although U.S. officials emphasized that billions of dollars have been spent to make the New Orleans levee system stronger than it was in 2005 -- including improvements to flood walls, pumping stations and navigation canals -- construction was not set to be completed until 2011, leaving a possibility of significant flooding there.
Bill Irwin, program manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, warned of "higher-risk areas," including the Inner Harbor Navigation Channel and neighborhoods hit hardest by Katrina, including the Lower Ninth Ward, Gentilly, St. Bernard Parish, and the east and west banks of New Orleans.
Trailers are another concern. About 14,000 remain occupied by Katrina survivors in Louisiana and Mississippi, most on the private property of homeowners who are rebuilding houses.
Energy companies began moving personnel off some of the more than 4,000 oil and gas rigs across the Gulf on Wednesday, recalling how 2005 storms destroyed more than 100 platforms, damaged pipelines, flooded coastal refineries and curtailed production for months.
The Associated Press reported that weather research firm Planalytics predicted that as much as 80 percent of oil and gas production in the Gulf, which accounts for about one-fourth of the nation's total production, could be shut down as a precaution if Gustav enters the region as a major storm.
Gustav struck Jamaica on Thursday, two days after it slammed into Haiti as a Category 1 hurricane. It triggered massive flooding and landslides that killed at least 59 people in Haiti and eight more in neighboring Dominican Republic.
After it clears the Jamaican coast, the storm is expected to again become a hurricane, according to the National Hurricane Center. Another tropical storm, Hanna, has formed farther east in the Atlantic Ocean. It was too early to predict whether it could threaten the United States.
Friday is the third anniversary of Katrina, which blasted through inadequate levees, flooded 80 percent of New Orleans and drove tens of thousands of residents from the city permanently.
Hsu reported from Washington. Staff writer Dan Eggen in Washington contributed to this report.
