Thread: Cnn Breaking news evacuate New Orleans

Mayor Ray Nagin orders New Orleans evacuated, calling Hurricane Gustav "the mother of all storms."



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Mandatory evacuations to begin Sunday morning in New OrleansStory Highlights
NEW: Mandatory evacuations set to begin 8 a.m. Sunday in New Orleans

Hurricane watch issued from southeastern Texas to Alabama-Florida border

Thousands evacuating Gulf Coast on buses, trains, planes

Gustav's sustained winds reach 150 mph as it roars past Cuba

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NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city beginning 8 a.m. Sunday morning but urged residents to consider escaping "the mother of all storms" before then.


New Orleans residents leave Friday via Interstate 10 westbound ahead of Hurricane Gustav.

1 of 3 more photos » "You need to be scared," Nagin said. "You need to be concerned and you need to get your butts moving out of New Orleans right now. This is the storm of the century."

The city's west bank is to evacuate at 8 a.m. and the west bank at noon.

Nagin said the city had evacuated roughly 10,000 people on Saturday on buses, traines and planes. Buses from collection points would continue running until midnight and resume at 6 a.m. on Sunday, he said.

"This storm is so powerful and growing more powerful every day," Nagin said of the hurricane, which reached Category 4 with sustained 150 mph winds as it tore through Cuba's western coast. "I'm not sure we've seen anything like this."

Authorities began ordering mandatory evacuations along Louisiana and Mississippi's Gulf Coast earlier Saturday as Gustav roared past Cuba and into the Gulf of Mexico.

"This storm could be as bad as it gets," Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said Saturday afternoon. "We could see flooding even worse than we saw in Hurricane Katrina."

Thousands of people had begun fleeing the coast by the time a hurricane watch was issued Saturday afternoon for southeastern Texas to the Alabama-Florida border as Gustav pursued a projected path toward the U.S. Gulf Coast.

The watch, which means hurricane conditions are possible within 36 hours, was announced the day after many in the region marked the third anniversary of Katrina's landfall.

At 5 p.m. ET, the eye of Gustav was about 130 miles (210 km) east-northeast of Cuba's western tip and moving northwest about 15 mph.

Hurricanes are ranked 1 to 5 in intensity on the Saffir-Simpson scale. A Category 4 has winds of 131 to 155 mph and can cause extreme damage. Watch a report on the hurricane watch »

Hundreds of people lined up for buses and trains to take them out of New Orleans and thousands of other Gulf Coast residents drove inland, clogging major highways. iReport: Are you there? Send photos, video

Jindal said the state planned to begin "contraflow" procedures, opening both sides of interstates to outgoing traffic only, at 4 a.m. Sunday.

More than a dozen parishes in Louisiana have declared states of emergency, and several others called for mandatory evacuations to begin Saturday and Sunday.

In Louisiana's St. Bernard Parish, where mandatory evacuations began 4 p.m. Saturday, authorities called the order "a matter of survival."

Many parishes also were imposing tough dusk-to-dawn curfews, hoping to assure residents that they could evacuate without fear of their vacant homes being looted.

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Jindal did not order mandatory evacuations at a state level, but he urged residents to take the evacuations seriously.

"I wouldn't worry about whether the evacuation in your parish begins at 4 p.m. today or 8 a.m. tomorrow," he said. "When it comes to evacuation, do it sooner rather than later."

In New Orleans, Louisiana, anxiety was high Saturday as residents fled, leaving behind a ghost town of boarded-up homes and empty streets. Watch Nagin urge people to leave »

At the Union Passenger Terminal in downtown New Orleans, people began arriving as early as 5:30 a.m., forming a line that snaked behind the main Amtrak terminal. Humvees circled the crowds of people, many who waited as long as 2½ hours, enduring the heat and relentless sun, unsure of their destination.

New Orleans officials designated 17 sites for people without transportation to board buses to take them to the terminal, where they will be moved to shelters outside New Orleans. However, scores of residents went directly to the terminal, prompting confusion, as did a glitch in the computer system being used to register people. Watch people flee New Orleans in buses »

Jindal suspended registration at the terminal and instructed people to register when they arrive at shelters. By Saturday afternoon, 1,100 to 1,200 people had left the city on those buses, Nagin said.

"I'm not sure where I'm going," Margie Hawkins of New Orleans said. "My last 24 hours have been somewhat worrisome and very, very prayerful, because this is a very serious threat, and it's a lot of people to get to safe ground or be safe where they are."

The city also arranged with Amtrak for more than 7,000 seats to evacuate the elderly by train. About 1,500 people left for Memphis, Tennessee, Nagin said.

There were also crowds at New Orleans' Louis Armstrong International Airport, which the city plans to keep open through 6 p.m. CT Sunday. Both Delta Air Lines and AirTran Airways said they planned to continue flights in and out of New Orleans until the airport is closed.

Buses arrived unloading evacuees, many of whom said they had no idea where they were going. Watch residents prepare to leave the city »

Vehicles jammed Interstate 10 headed west toward Texas. Cars also clogged Interstates 55 and 59 heading north out of eastern Louisiana. Heavy volume was also reported on Interstates 65 and 59 as Mississippi evacuees streamed north.

The hurricane is projected to pass over western Cuba later in the day and to move into the southern Gulf of Mexico early Sunday and into the central Gulf by early Monday, according to forecasters. Gustav could make landfall as a Category 3 or 4 on the U.S. Gulf Coast late Monday or Tuesday, the National Hurricane Center said.

The storm called up uneasy memories Friday of the deadly 2005 hurricane season, particularly of Katrina. When Katrina hit, more than 1,800 people died in five states, 1,577 of them in Louisiana.

Residents and officials were determined not to be caught off-guard again.

Unlike the situation during Katrina, there will be no "shelter of last resort," the city said. In 2005, the city's Louisiana Superdome housed thousands of New Orleanians who couldn't, or didn't, heed the mandatory evacuation order. Watch FEMA administrator talk about being proactive »

The arena -- which grew dark, hot and increasingly fetid after the electricity failed and the plumbing was overwhelmed in the storm -- became a symbol of the disaster and the much-maligned government response to it.


Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour announced Friday that Hurricane Katrina victims living in government-issued trailers or mobile homes along his state's coast would begin evacuating Saturday.

About 4,300 families live in FEMA trailers or mobile homes, and 2,800 live in permanent structures known as Mississippi cottages, the governor's office said.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/08/3 ... topstories

Git while the gittin's good!

Jimpasz , thank you for your post about Gustav in New Orleans.

I surely wish the city would have gotten its levees up to a Cat 5 , so they would have been totally prepared. It was good to hear,from your article, how organized they are now .I hope Gustav loses a lot of strength before coming ashore.

Right now, I am getting ready in case tomorrow I have to evacuate. My heart is my throat with Gustav. I guess it is he same way you would feel on death row with waiting for a reprieve from the governor. The good part is after a while you would be begging them to pull the switch.

Oh well , I got my laptop all ready to go so I can read your posts.

Deedee will say a prayer for your safety, keep us posted if you are able.

DEEDEE: NICE TO HEAR YOU ARE PREPARED TO LEAVE IF NECESSARY. YOU WILL BE IN OUR PRAYERS. BE SAFE.

WHAT'S MICKAEL AND GEORGE UP TO RIGHT ABOUT NOW??ANYBODY KNOW??
This President, this Vice President and this Head of Homeland Security (Homeland? Gee isn't that synonomous with communism?) should lead, not follow. Lead like, NOT waiting for the disaster (or for a better term, a 'catastrophie'.) to get here and be done. Are they sitting on their hands again? Instead, they should be bringing in the troops and supplies to the expected site within a reasonable time frame (which is IMMEDIATELY after the worst has passed.) There's a mountain of cooperatlion and planning that will be needed from our great leaders (yea, right!) that will produce real results in order to help and hinder against the monster whose time has come to die after having raced twoards its defeat in New Orleans.

I'm just hoping that the Garbage Can Republicans and Democrats can rise from their greed and quickly get their act together AND proove to us that this time, that they CAN DO AND WILL LEAD thus helping greatly reducing the loss of life..lead like the true leaders that they claim they are. Come on, son and daughter, it's time to grow up. LEAD OR GET THE HELL OFF MY LAND NOW! YOU HAVE NO STINKIN PLACE IN OUR GOVERNMENT! sic 'em, Rolf!

DO YOU BELIEVE THAT REAL LEADERS LIKE WHAT JOHN MCCAIN STRIVES TO BE SHOULD PROFOUNDLY ANNOUNCE THAT THEY ARE STOPPING WHAT IT IS THEY ARE DOING AND ASKS HOW MAY THEY BE OF ASSISTANCE? I mean after all, don't hurricanes occur every four years during an election process? Yea, Barry and Johnny, DDDUUUUHHHH! Ok, who REALLY wants to win this election?

Meanwhile, the powers that be are busy year round, carrying on with (who knows what other ) agendas. But are they leading or following? We will know soon enough!

I will take my leave.

Jimpasz said:

Deedee will say a prayer for your safety, keep us posted if you are able.

Jimpasz , what a nice thing to say , and I really appreciate it ! My laptop is all set to go.

Redpony353, said;

DEEDEE: NICE TO HEAR YOU ARE PREPARED TO LEAVE IF NECESSARY. YOU WILL BE IN OUR PRAYERS. BE SAFE.

Redpony353, I really do appreciate your very kind thoughts !

If every grocery store and every school and every church and every library in America would let people drop things off for the victims of the storm this could be a lot easier and less expensive of a disaster for the country.

Also, people could offer to give shelter to the victims too, in the coming days, weeks and months.

Then afterwards when they rebuild New Orleans, I would suggest that New Orleans be rebuilt farther north on higher ground. Otherwise, we're going to go through this AGAIN.

They could allow the area where New Orleans is presently located to be a National Park.

That would work.

Good luck to everyone there and I certainly hope that this time EVERYONE will get the heck OUT. There's no excuse this time. Everyone can be saved and safe.

*Right now the government should be asking people to volunteer to take in evacuees.

We have to learn to get back to helping fellow citizens in times of disaster and not just sitting back and watching it happen on TV.

President Bush, Vice President Cheney to skip Republican convention because of Hurricane Gustav, White House says.

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