From combined dispatches
NEW ORLEANS | Mayor C. Ray Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans, turning informal advice to flee from the approaching Hurricane Gustav into an official order on Saturday night to get away from “the mother of all storms.”
“I am announcing today mandatory evacuation of New Orleans,” Mr. Nagin said at a press conference. “We want 100 percent evacuation. If you decide to stay, you are on your own … Get out of town. This is not the one to play with.”
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Mr. Nagin said the evacuation becomes mandatory at 8 a.m. Sunday on the city’s vulnerable western bank of the Mississippi River. It becomes mandatory on the eastern bank at noon.
The mayor said police, fire and other emergency personnel are being pulled from the city to safer areas. A “skeleton crew” of fewer than 50 city workers will be left behind, according to officials.
Even before Mr. Nagin’s order, an estimated 1 million residents across the Gulf Coast region already had fled Gustav, which was expected to became a monster Category 5 storm Sunday. But the mayor estimated that less than half of his city’s population has left despite days of dire warnings.
“This is the real deal,” he said. “Riding this storm out would be one of the biggest mistakes you could make in your life.”
Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center said they were surprised at how quickly Gustav gained strength, going from a tropical storm to a Category 4 hurricane in about 24 hours. It was likely to become a Category 5 storm - with sustained winds of 156 mph or higher - by Sunday.
“That puts a different light on our evacuations and hopefully that will send a very clear message to the people in the Gulf Coast to really pay attention,” said Federal Emergency Management Agency chief R. David Paulison.
If current forecasts hold up, Gustav would make landfall Monday afternoon somewhere between the southeastern corner of Texas and western Mississippi.
Gustav had already killed more than 80 people in the Caribbean, as it slammed Saturday into Cuba’s tobacco-growing western tip, where screaming 150 mph winds toppled telephone poles, mango and almond trees and peeled back the tin roofs of homes.
Ana Isla, the civil defense chief for Isla de la Juventud, said on Cuban state TV that there were “many people injured,” but no reports of deaths. She said nearly all its roads were washed out and that some regions were heavily flooded.
Forecasters warned that it was still too soon to say whether New Orleans would take a direct hit, but residents weren’t taking any chances judging by the bumper-to-bumper traffic pouring from the city. Gas stations along interstate highways were running out of fuel, and phone circuits were jammed.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff planned to travel to Louisiana on Sunday to observe preparations.
Earlier Saturday, New Orleans officials continued to evacuate the elderly, disabled, poor and others without means, putting an estimated 30,000 such residents on buses and trains.
New Orleans is uniquely vulnerable among Gulf Coast cities because much of it lies in a below-sea-level bowl, protected by a system of levees. If the levees break, as happened with Katrina in 2005, the storm-surged waters of Mississippi River will spill into that bowl and flood the city.
Unlike during Katrina, when thousands took refuge inside the Superdome, there will be no “last-resort” shelter, and those who stay behind accept “all responsibility for themselves and their loved ones,” said the city’s emergency preparedness director, Jerry Sneed.
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