The city of New Orleans, still crippled by Hurricane Katrina’s devastating wallop three years ago, braced this morning for what could be a death blow from “the storm of the century.”
As Hurricane Gustav gained strength over the Gulf of Mexico, only some 10,000 of the city’s 239,000 residents remained – many armed to the teeth to ward off looters.
With Gustav set to make landfall at around noon just west of the main quarters of the city, the Big Easy took on the eerie look of a ghost town as tens of thousands of residents heeded Mayor Ray Nagin’s order to evacuate.
The mayor imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew on those who decided to ride out the storm and warned that looters would be quickly hauled off to the state prison in Angola.
“Looters will go directly to jail. You will not get a pass this time,” Nagin said. “You will not have a temporary stay in the city. You will go directly to the big house.”
About 1,400 police officers and 2,000 National Guard troops patrolled the streets to prevent a repeat of the lawlessness and chaos that followed Katrina.
Gun and ammo stores were doing brisk business among those who refused to leave and who weren’t entirely convinced the cops and National Guardsmen could protect them.
Ray Hoffmann, 72, had his trusty shotgun by his side to protect himself and his wife, Margaret.
“I was born in 1935. I lived through a hurricane in 1947. I lived through Rita and then Katrina, and my house is over 100 years old, and there has never been any damage to it. The problems are when the looters come through,” Hoffmann told The Post last night.
Joann Guidos, who owns Kajun’s Pub in the Faubourg Marigny section, told Reuters that the worst part during Katrina wasn’t the 12 inches of water on the bar floor, it was the looting.
Now she has a knife, a pistol, a sniper’s rifle and an assortment of other guns in her house next door to the bar.
“I haven’t shot anybody yet, but if I have to, I will,” she said. “You have a lot of real idiots in this city.”
Grim-faced Tom Richard and Justin Workmon stood armed to the teeth with assault weapons to protect against thieves, but refused to talk about what might happen. Gustav – a Category 3 storm, with hurricane winds extending 65 miles from its center and tropical-storm-force winds as far as 220 miles – began lashing the Gulf Coast with rain bands as it lumbered toward New Orleans yesterday. Category 3 storms have winds of between 111 mph and 130 mph.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Gustav was not expected to become a Category 4 storm, which packs winds as fierce as 155 mph.
But Katrina was a Category 3 storm, and Gustav could still bring a storm surge of 14 feet and 20 inches of rain, which could overwhelm the city’s aging, 7-foot-high levees, some of which haven’t been repaired from Katrina’s devastation.
Nagin called Gustav “the mother of all storms” and “the storm of the century.”
“This storm is so powerful that I’m not sure we have seen anything like it,” he said. “The National Weather Service is saying that it’s the worst possible storm that they can imagine. That gives you some idea of what we’re dealing with.”
Police said nearly 2 million people have evacuated from coastal south Louisiana, leaving only about 100,000 people behind as of last night.
President Bush, who was criticized for a sluggish response to Katrina, canceled his appearance at the Republican National Convention and will instead travel to Texas to meet with emergency-response personnel preparing for Gustav. He also said he hopes to travel to Louisiana when conditions permit.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff arrived in the region yesterday and planned to stay for the duration of the storm.
New York state is sending eight National Guard helicopters, a cargo plane and about 60 airmen and soldiers to aid in the response to Gustav.
New York City is also sending a 35-person rescue unit to help.
“We feel that our team is second to none in the system,” said NYPD Lt. Franco Barbeiro.
A week ago, New Orleans Police Superintendent Warren Riley gave his city’s 1,485 officers paid time off to get their families to safety. It was a lesson learned from Katrina, when dozens of officers abandoned their posts, saying they were forced to chose between taking care of strangers or taking care of their families. This time, the department made sure they had time to do both.
Riley said 97 percent of the city’s officers would stay. With Post Wire Services
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