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New Orleans Won't Offer Shelter In Storm

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The Associated Press

Published: August 30, 2008

NEW ORLEANS - Police with bullhorns plan to go street to street this weekend with a tough message about getting out ahead of Hurricane Gustav: This time there will be no shelter of last resort. The doors to the Superdome will be locked. Those who stay will be on their own.

New forecasts Friday made it increasingly clear that New Orleans will get some kind of hit - direct or indirect - by early next week. That raised the likelihood people would have to flee, and the city suggested a full-scale evacuation call could come as soon as Sunday.

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.

As Katrina approached in 2005, as many as 30,000 people who either could not or would not evacuate jammed the Louisiana Superdome and the riverfront convention center. They spent days waiting for rescue in squalid conditions. Some died.

Stung by the images that flashed around the world, including the photo of an elderly woman dead in her wheelchair, her body covered with a blanket, officials promised to find a better way.

This time, the city has taken steps to ensure no one has an excuse not to leave. The state has a $7 million contract to provide 700 buses to evacuate the elderly, the sick and anyone in the region without transportation.

Officials also plan to announce a curfew that will mean the arrest of anyone still on the streets after a mandatory evacuation order goes out.

Today, police planned to roam neighborhoods, directing residents-in-need to pick-up points.

The city also planned to reach out to churches, hoping to spread the word about where the buses will pick up evacuees.

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