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TechnoratiHundreds Line Up to Leave New Orleans Before Gustav
NEW ORLEANS - Hundreds of people lined up outside a bus and train terminal early on Saturday to get out of New Orleans as Hurricane Gustav took aim at the Louisiana coast, reviving traumatic memories of Hurricane Katrina.
![[People line up at an evacuation point in New Orleans, Saturday, Aug. 30, 2008, as Hurricane Gustav approaches the Gulf coast. Gustav strengthened into a Category 3 hurricane Saturday, and as city officials started evacuation plans, some residents weren't waiting to be told to leave. (AP Photo/Bill Haber)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/gustav.jpg "gustav.jpg")
The city, which marked the third anniversary of Katrina on Friday, had not yet issued a mandatory evacuation order. Officials said that could come on Sunday.
But with memories of Katrina and its devastation still fresh, many had already decided to abandon the city, much of which lies below sea level. Gustav, now a major hurricane, was heading toward western Cuba on Saturday, and could reach the Louisiana coast early on Tuesday.
Cars crammed bumper to bumper on highways leading out of the city, and several low-lying parishes issued mandatory evacuation orders effective later on Saturday.
Hoping to avoid the 2005 spectacle of desperate city residents crammed into the New Orleans Superdome, the government has lined up hundreds of buses and trains to evacuate 30,000 people who cannot leave on their own.
About 1,500 Louisiana National Guard troops are in New Orleans to oversee the evacuation.
FLOATING BODIES
Walter Parker, a security guard who was trapped for eight days in his apartment during the Katrina flooding, lined up outside the Union Passenger Terminal as families with bags packed and children in tow waited for transportation.
Hundreds lined up to board buses, with no knowledge of their eventual destination.
"I'm not taking any chances. I don't want to see another Katrina, with dead bodies floating in the water," said Parker.
"I saw elderly people floating. I saw one body that really got to me, a child, floating, and it just made me sick."
Katrina was a monstrous Category 5 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale in the Gulf of Mexico before hitting the coast near New Orleans as a Category 3 on August 29, 2005, with wind speeds up to 130 miles per hour (209 kph).
Its massive storm surge broke through protective levees and flooded 80 percent of the city. New Orleans degenerated into chaos as stranded storm victims waited days for rescue.
About 1,500 people were killed on the U.S. Gulf Coast and $80 billion in damages made Katrina the costliest U.S. natural disaster. In all, 11.5 million people are in the path of the storm, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Gustav's sustained winds had risen to 120 mph (195 kph), making it a Category 3 storm. Any storm with winds of at least 111 mph (178 kph) is ranked "major" by the Miami-based hurricane center.
Forecasters said Gustav could grow to a Category 4, with winds of at least 131 mph (210 kph), before reaching the Cuban coast. The storm's current projected track takes it into the low-lying Terrebonne Parish southwest of New Orleans, one of the least-protected areas on the Louisiana coast.
Windell Curole, manager of neighboring South Lafourche Levee District, said: "If it's close to us, our levee system wasn't designed for that kind of storm. There's a tremendous risk."
(Additional reporting by Kathy Finn in New Orleans; Editing by Alan Elsner and Chris Baltimore)
12 Comments so far
Show AllPaul K,
Your posts are always spot on. If you ever want to share any links to great sites or books to read that I could tackle I would like to be on your email list. You are extremely knowledgable and empathetic. I enjoy your analysis. Always thought out, concise yet thorough.
Thanks.
civilsocietyATbellsouth.net
BTW, as I sit here on the east coast of Florida and we are getting winds, showers and cloudy skies from a storm that is probably 500 miles away I fear for the storm about to be unleashed on a city that lives below sea level. Fay was just a tropical storm and we got beat from that because we were on the east side of the storm as it crossed. I cannot imagine what Gustav will do to NO.
Nagin and Jindal have been pleading with residents over the last two days to GET OUT, and providing buses for those without transportation.
My sympathy is going to be very limited for any suffering done by those who stay behind anyway. And, I hate to sound unprogressive, it WON'T be Bush's fault.
I wonder if they will lose all of these people too and or prevent them from returning home. Then "New Awleens" will be all white like “they” want it to be.
Get out, get out, get out! Katrina was a category 2 storm with a corrupt Corps of Engineers. Everything says this storm is the real thing, not a Katrina. Cuba is dealing with a 23 foot storm surge and the storm is forecasted to power up even more. Gustav is heading to the west of New Orleans, putting New Orleans on the more powerful onshore wind side.
New Orleans, the State of Louisiana and the U.S. Govt. are idiots to plan for a "100 year storm". The Netherlands plans for a 10,000 year storm. The 100 year storms seem to be coming by every 5 years now, and global warming will certainly get worse. No, New Orleans isn't up to the 100 year storm standard yet.
Smoking doesn't cause any particular lung cancer, and the fossil fuel business didn't cause this particular hurricane. Denial is a river running from St. Paul to New Orleans.
Actually the report on millions in India being displaced has even fewer posts, only three. Yet it is a perfect example of climate refugees.
Both of these have to do with global warming and the way the climate is being affected by the emissions of fossil fuel. The fact that the republican VP pick just happens to be the governor of the state where ANWR is located is surely incidental.
The possibility that the oil supply from Gulf rigs might be compromised (as though there would be a way to check that)and gas could go back up even further so as to have the pimped American driver screaming to drill couldn't possibly have anything to do with this Rovian pick now could it?
Progressives need to wake up and meet this barrelling locomotive head on. Stop believing anything the goverenment as currently constructed has to say. They are fully invested in manipulating the facts so as to elevate their own personal gain. This has NOTHING to do with us. It's about them.
They cannot afford to have dead bodies floating in the streets this time round before an election but that doesn't mean they are going to anything but drill for more oil to contribute to the global catastrophe unfolding before our eyes.
Did each of you see pictures of the storm that roared through Phoenix last night? And that was just a "freak" storm I suppose.
NOrleans was a marker. That was the day that should have cemented your understanding of what your government is interested in doing for the working Joe and the poor, essentially 75% of us. Nothing. I repeat, nothing.
287 CP poster comments accompany the article about McCain's VP pick. Six comments for this article about thousands of people endangered in New Orleans.
Draw your own conclusions.
You mean people are taking pro active steps to ensure their safety? I guess this time they will heed the warning of the national weather service.
I just hope 'ol school bus Nagin can get those busses gassed up and save his blessed "chocolate' city.
You have no idea what you are talking about.(or, youre a sociolpath) If you did--you wouldnt say it. How old are you?
Paleo is right, you damned heartless Neanderthal. Scratch that, because Neanderthals probably weren't as cold as you. Maybe there's something to the pessimist POV which predicts that humans will kill themselves off. With people like you...one can hope.
"Society is in every state a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." --- Thomas Paine, Common Sense
I don't understand this argument. If you look at the all posts it seems to me that everyone supports protecting the people of New Orleans. I am happy their lives will probably be saved. Good that pets are being evacuated too.
It looks bad for their city. Some of us will probably have to open up our homes for a while. But New Orleans will need a MAJOR reconstruction if poorer residents are to have basics like homes, jobs and public schools. They need some high ground.
Joe
So we're finally learning from Cuba's example. It is good for government to intervene and save the lives of people who can't afford a car. Katrina exposed the systemic racism and fascist classism of our government. Now the Bush regime will at least try to look like it cares.
I'm afraid you have it exactly right--the perception that they care. I wonder if the GOP Convention wasnt goin on if they would be doing anything at all? Katrina was the day I decided my own govt was ful of shit.