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NEW ORLEANS - Low-lying Louisiana parishes called for evacuations Saturday and lines formed at gas stations in New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina appeared to be taking aim at the region while gathering strength over the warm water of the Gulf of Mexico.

“This is not a test,” New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin said at a news conference. He said he would probably ask people to leave at daybreak Sunday, and said the Superdome could be pressed into use as a shelter of last resort for people who do not have cars.

Katrina threatened to strike land again as early as Monday after ripping across southern Florida and killing seven people.

Gulf Coast watch
The National Hurricane Center posted a hurricane watch for the eastern half of the Louisiana coast, including New Orleans. The watch was likely to be extended to other areas, which could extend from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle.

Katrina was a Category 3 storm with 115 mph sustained wind Saturday, but the hurricane center said it was likely to get stronger over the Gulf, where the surface water temperature was as high as 90 degrees.

“Right now, it looks like Louisiana is in line for a possible direct hit,” Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said. “It does not bode well for southeastern Louisiana.”

Mandatory or voluntary evacuations were called on Grand Isle, Louisiana’s only inhabited barrier island, and in the parishes of St. Charles, Lafourche, Terrebonne, Plaquemines and St. Bernard.

'All we can do is pray'
Most permanent residents of Grand Isle, La., don’t leave for storms, said Jeannette Ruboyianes (Roo-buh-YAH-nees), owner of the Day Dream Inn.

“You have to have money to evacuate. If you don’t have it, you ride out the storm,” she said. “You know, at this juncture, all we can do is pray it doesn’t come this way and tear us up.”

About 300,000 residents of low-lying areas of the Florida Panhandle east of Pensacola also were under voluntary evacuation orders. The military planned to move aircraft and personnel out of some Panhandle bases Saturday.

Ray Arizi, owner of a hardware store in Venice, La., a coastal fishing town, said he was selling lots of bottled water, flashlights and batteries as people made storm preparations.

“Hopefully God will save us. That’s all we can say,” Arizi said.

Gas lines
People across New Orleans were filling their gas tanks, with lines several blocks long in some places, and some pumps were out of everything but premium.

By 11 a.m. Saturday, the eye of the hurricane was located about 200 miles west of Key West or about 405 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River. It was moving west at nearly 7 mph and was expected to gradually turn toward the west-northwest, the hurricane center said.

Hurricane-force wind extended up to 40 miles out from the center, the center said.

Katrina was a Category 1 with 80 mph wind when it hit South Florida on Thursday, and rainfall was estimated at up to 20 inches. Risk modeling companies have said early estimates of insured damage range from $600 million to $2 billion. That would make Katrina much less costly than the previous hurricanes.

Florida recovering
South Florida utility crews were still working to restore power to 850,000 customers, down from more than 1 million. Crews had to clear away fallen trees to fix aboveground lines and wait for flooding to subside to reach underground ones.

South Florida residents waited in lines that stretched for miles to reach state-operated centers distributing free water and ice for those without electricity.

Florida has been hit by six hurricanes since last August. The Panhandle was slammed by Hurricane Ivan last year, then again by Hurricane Dennis this year, both Category 3 storms.

Four people killed by falling trees, one man was killed when his car struck a fallen tree, and two people died in their boats.

Katrina is the 11th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. That’s seven more than typically have formed by now in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, the hurricane center said. The season ends Nov. 30.

NEW ORLEANS - Mayor Ray Nagin ordered an immediate mandatory evacuation Sunday for all of New Orleans, a city sitting below sea level with 485,000 inhabitants, as Hurricane Katrina bore down with wind revved up to nearly 175 mph and a threat of a massive storm surge.

President Bush followed suit, urging people living in the path of the hurricane to take the storm extremely seriously and follow orders to evacuate to higher ground.

Acknowledging that large numbers of people, many of them stranded tourists, would be unable to leave, the city set up 10 places of last resort including the Superdome arena.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime event,” Nagin said. “The city of New Orleans has never seen a hurricane of this magnitude hit it directly.”

Levees may be compromised
The mayor called the order unprecedented, but said Katrina’s storm surge would likely top the levees that protect the city from the surrounding water of Lake Pontchartrain, the Mississippi River and marshes. The bowl-shaped city must pump water out even during normal times, and the hurricane threatened pump power.

“We are facing a storm that most of us have long feared,” Nagin said.

“We will do everything in our power to help the people in the communities affected by this storm,” Bush said as the hurricane bore down. “We cannot stress enough the danger this hurricane poses to Gulf Coast communities,” Bush told reporters on his ranch in central Texas.

“I urge all citizens to put their own safety and the safety of their families first by moving to safe ground,” Bush said.

Governor: I-10 stop and go
Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Interstate 10, which was converted Saturday so that all lanes headed one-way out of town, was totally gridlocked.

At 11 a.m. EDT, the National Hurricane Center said Katrina’s maximum sustained wind speed had stepped up to nearly 175 mph, with higher gusts. The hurricane’s eye was about 225 miles south-southeast of the mouth of Mississippi River.

The storm was moving toward the west-northwest at nearly 12 mph and was expected to turn toward the north-northwest, the hurricane center said.

Nagin said people who opted to go to the Superdome should come with enough food and supplies to last three to five days. He said police and firefighters would fan out throughout the city telling residents to get out. He also said police would have the authority to commander any vehicle or building that could be used for evacuation or shelter.

A hurricane warning was in effect for the north-central Gulf Coast from Morgan City, La., to the Alabama-Florida line, meaning hurricane conditions were expected within 24 hours, the hurricane center said. Tropical storm warnings extended east to Indian Pass, Fla., and west to Cameron, La.

Katrina had been blamed for nine deaths in South Florida.

Storm-surge flood threat
The storm had the potential for storm surge flooding of up to 25 feet, topped with even higher waves, as much as 15 inches of rain, and tornadoes, the National Hurricane Center said.

Only three Category 5 hurricanes — the highest on the Saffir-Simpson scale — have hit the United States since record-keeping began. The last was 1992’s Hurricane Andrew, which leveled parts of South Florida, killed 43 people and caused $31 billion in damage.

The other two were the 1935 Labor Day hurricane that hit the Florida Keys and killed 600 people and Hurricane Camille, which devastated the Mississippi coast in 1969, killing 256.

Mississippi landfall possible
The hurricane’s landfall could still come in Mississippi and affect Alabama and Florida, but it looked likely to come ashore Monday morning on the southeastern Louisiana coast, said Ed Rappaport, deputy director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami. That put New Orleans squarely in the crosshairs.

“If it came ashore with the intensity it has now and went to the New Orleans area, it would be the strongest we’ve had in recorded history there,” Rappaport said in a telephone interview Sunday morning. “We’re hoping of course there’ll be a slight tapering off at least of the winds, but we can’t plan on that. So whichever area gets hit, this is going to be a once in a lifetime event for them.”

He said loss of life was “what inevitably occurs” with a storm this strong.

“We’re in for some trouble here, no matter what,” he said.

Holy cow! It has wind speeds of up to 175 mph! If you're in its path, I'd get out of the way as soon as possible...like now, for instance.

Holy cow! It has wind speeds of up to 175 mph! If you're in its path, I'd get out of the way as soon as possible...like now, for instance.

Exactly.

Why are you even reading our posts?! Head to Mississippi!