NEW ORLEANS — As potentially dangerous Hurricane Gustav approached the Louisiana coast on Saturday, New Orleans began a far more carefully planned evacuation of the city than it experienced exactly three years ago when Katrina struck. Buses began ferrying low-income residents to shelters in the north, cars began streaming out on interstate highways and hotels shooed away valuable tourists
New Orleans was expected to get at least tropical-storm-force winds from Hurricane Gustav by Monday. By early Saturday the storm had strengthened into a Category Three hurricane with winds of up to 120 miles per hour as it moved toward Cuba and the Gulf of Mexico, and forecasters said it was most likely to strike the Louisiana coast early Tuesday. New Orleans could get winds of up to 73 miles per hour, and possibly greater.
Officials here, exercising deliberate caution after the disaster of three years ago, said they could declare a mandatory evacuation of the city by early Sunday morning. Hotels were closing, and the sound of boards being hammered over windows could be heard. The state police on Saturday morning reported moderately heavy traffic on a principal highway north, Interstate 55, and a voluntary city-organized evacuation plan for the poor, elderly and sick — the principal victims in Hurricane Katrina — was in full swing.
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