Does this picture look too familiar. Well it should. It's folks leaving New Orleans over that same bridge they used when Hurricane Katrina hit. Last night city officials, in anticipation of Hurricane Gustav, ordered all roads converted one way, out of town. The only way you are getting into New Orleans is by a helicopter and it better say on the outside FEMA or Homeland Security."I'm getting out of here. I can't take another hurricane," said Ramona Summers, 59, whose house flooded during Katrina. She hurried to help friends gather their belongings. Her car was already packed for Gonzales, Louisiana, nearly 60 miles away to the west of New Orleans.
Gustav swelled into a major hurricane south of Cuba on Saturday and could strike the U.S. coast anywhere from the Florida Panhandle to Texas by Tuesday, but forecasters said there is a better-than-even chance that New Orleans will get slammed by at least tropical-storm-force winds.
That raised the likelihood people will have to flee, and the city suggested a full-scale evacuation call could come as soon as Sunday.
Police and firefighters were set to go street-to-street with bull horns over the weekend to direct people to leave. Unlike Hurricane Katrina, there will be no shelter of last resort in the Superdome.
Those among New Orleans' estimated 310,000 to 340,000 residents who ignore orders to leave accept "all responsibility for themselves and their loved ones," the city's emergency preparedness director, Jerry Sneed, has warned.