The evacuation of New Orleans becomes mandatory at 8 a.m. today along the vulnerable west bank of the Mississippi River, and at noon on the east bank. Nagin called Gustav the storm of the century and told residents to "get your butts out of New Orleans now."
Gov. Bobby Jindal issued a "contraflow" directive effective at 4 a.m. today, meaning that all major highways would run only outbound from coastal areas to facilitate evacuation traffic.
Officials said that at least 1,500 New Orleans police officers, augmented by another 1,500 National Guard troops, were patrolling the city against looters - double the law enforcement presence after Katrina.
"We will be able to pretty much lock down this city," said New Orleans Police Superintendent Warren Riley. "People should be confident we will be able to handle this very, very well. We can't promise nothing will happen, but it certainly will be a tremendous force of law enforcement and military here."
At the city's central train and bus station yesterday - in the shadow of the New Orleans Superdome where tens of thousands of storm victims were stranded without food or water for nearly a week after Katrina - evacuees bused in from staging points across the city were swiftly processed and loaded onto outbound buses and trains headed for shelters in Memphis and upstate Louisiana.
Each evacuee received a colored wristband indicating any special medical or assistance needs. There were designated lines for the elderly, those with wheelchairs and families with young children, as well as ample food and water.
There was even a staging area for family pets - countless numbers perished during Katrina - which were being caged and loaded into air-conditioned semi-trailers destined for the same evacuation cities as their owners so they could be quickly reunited.
"Nobody had to tell me twice to get out this time," said Tasha Smith, 23, as she clutched her 1-year-old son Michael in her arms while waiting with other family members to board an evacuation bus. "We had to get rescued from our roof after Katrina. I wasn't about to go through anything like that again."
City officials pointedly refused to set up any "shelters of last resort" inside the city, to avoid a repeat of the hellish post-Katrina scenes at the Superdome and the downtown Convention Center.
Any of the city's estimated 310,000 residents who ignore orders to leave accept "all responsibility for themselves and their loved ones," announced Jerry Sneed, the city's emergency preparedness director.
