Nervous New Orleans faces threat of Gustav

The third anniversary of the devastating Hurricane Katrina is Friday.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — On the eve of Hurricane Katrina’s third anniversary, a nervous New Orleans watched Wednesday as another storm threatened to test everything the city has rebuilt, and officials made preliminary plans to evacuate people, pets and hospitals in an attempt to avoid a Katrina-style chaos.

Forecasters warned that Gustav could grow into a dangerous Category 3 hurricane in the next several days and hit somewhere along a swath of the Gulf Coast from the Florida Panhandle to Texas — with New Orleans smack in the middle. Forecasters caution, however, that it’s difficult to predict the storm’s path this early.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is declaring a state of emergency and activating the National Guard in advance of Gustav.

Jindal said 3,000 National Guard troops will be activated and deployed a day in advance of the storm’s expected landfall. An additional 2,000 troops could be called up to duty.

About 300 guard troops are already in New Orleans, working with New Orleans police to patrol neighborhoods still devastated from Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

“I’m panicking,” said Evelyn Fuselier of Chalmette, whose home was submerged in 14 feet of floodwater when Katrina hit. Fuselier said she’s been back in her home one year this month, and called watching Gustav swirl toward the Gulf of Mexico indescribable. “I keep thinking, ‘Did the Corps fix the levees?’, ‘Is my house going to flood again?’ ... ‘Am I going to have to go through all this again?’”

Taking no chances, city officials began preliminary planning to evacuate and lock down the city in hopes of avoiding the catastrophe that followed the 2005 storm. Mayor Ray Nagin left the Democratic National Convention in Denver to return home for the preparations.

If a Category 3 or stronger hurricane comes within 60 hours of the city, New Orleans plans to institute a mandatory evacuation order. Unlike Katrina, there will be no massive shelter at the Superdome, a plan designed to encourage residents to leave. Instead, the state has arranged for buses and trains to take people to safety.

It was unclear what would happen to stragglers. Jerry Sneed, the city’s emergency preparedness director, said officials are ready to move about 30,000 people. Nearly 8,000 people had signed up for transportation help by late Wednesday.

At a suburban Lowe’s store, employees said portable generators, gasoline cans, bottled water and batteries were selling briskly. Hotels across south Louisiana reported taking many reservations as coastal residents looked inland for possible refuge.

Steve Weaver, 82, and his wife stayed for Katrina — and were plucked off the roof of their house by a Coast Guard helicopter. This time, Weaver has no inclination to ride out the storm.

“Everybody learned a lesson about staying, so the highways will be twice as packed this time,” Weaver said.

Katrina struck New Orleans on Aug. 29, 2005, and its storm surge blasted through the levees that protect the city. Eighty percent of the city was flooded.

Though pockets of the New Orleans are well on the way to recovery, many neighborhoods have struggled to recover. Many residents still live in temporary trailers, and shuttered homes still bear the “X” that was painted to help rescue teams looking for the dead.

Many people never returned, and the city’s population, around 310,000 people, is roughly two-thirds what it was before the storm, though various estimates vary wildly.

Since the storm, the Army Corps of Engineers has spent billions of dollars to improve the levee system, but because of two quiet hurricane seasons, the flood walls have never been tested.

Floodgates have been installed on drainage canals to stop any storm surge from entering the city, and levees have been raised and in many places strengthened with concrete. But they are not built to withstand a storm stronger than Katrina.

Gustav formed Monday and roared ashore Tuesday as a Category 1 hurricane near the southern Haitian city of Jacmel with top winds near 90 mph, toppling palm trees and flooding the city’s Victorian buildings.

The storm triggered flooding and landslides that killed 22 people in the Caribbean. It weakened into a tropical storm and appeared headed for Cuba, though it is likely to grow stronger in the coming days by drawing energy from warm open water.