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New Orleans Mayor Orders Evacuation

by Gh0s7 | August 30, 2008 at 06:53 pm | 160 views | 2 comments | 7 recommendations

Full Disk Water Vapor 30Aug2008 14:45 UTC

Reuters is reporting that as of 10:17 PM on Saturday, August 30, Mayor Ray Nagin has ordered the evacuation of New Orleans, starting early on Sunday.

The evacuation order, which will not be physically enforced by officials, will start with the city's low-lying West Bank starting at 8 a.m. CDT (1300 GMT) on Sunday, followed by the East Bank at noon CDT (1700 GMT), Nagin told reporters at City Hall.

In the article by Reuters, Nagin is quoted as saying "this is the mother of all storms." The announcement has brought the city's post Katrina population of around 239, 124 the order for evacuation for the first time since Hurricane Katrina.

Residents have the choice to remain behind and weather the storms, but "that would be one of the biggest mistakes that you could make in your life," Nagin said.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has warned residents of the state that flooding could be worse than was seen after Hurricane Katrina. Mayor Nagin has said that the evacuations will begin at 8 am on the west bank and mandatory on the city's east bank at noon. Nagin has emphasized many times that anyone who decides to try and wait out the storm will not have access to emergency services of any kind for the duration of the storm.

As of Saturday, an estimated 1 million residents of the Gulf Coast have left their homes for the safety of going further inland to weather the storm. The current watch area for the hurricane includes Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and part of Texas. As of this article, Gustav had strengthened to a Category 4 hurricane as it approaches Cuba and the Gulf Coast.

"Emotionally can we handle it? I think there's a lot of fragileness in the city," Nagin said. "It’s going to be a tough one, but New Orleanians are very resilient."