HURRICANE Gustav was screaming towards the United States' gulf coast last night, forcing one million people to flee and turning New Orleans into a virtual ghost city.
Fresh from cutting a deadly path through the Caribbean, where at least 94 people were killed, the storm was expected to strike the Louisiana coastline today with winds of up to 127mph, threatening a repeat of the catastrophic Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
"You need to be scared, you need to be concerned, and you need to get your butts moving out of New Orleans right now. This is the storm of the century," warned Ray Nagin, the mayor of New Orleans, as he issued a mandatory evacuation order.
"This storm is so powerful that I'm not sure we've seen anything like it … this is the real deal, this is not a test, so anyone out there thinking they can ride this storm out, I have news for you: that would be the biggest mistake of your life."
All routes into the city were turned into one-way streets, allowing traffic to flow out quicker.
Families packed their pets and possessions and joined the nose-to-tail queues of cars heading in all directions, for shelter inland or further along the coast in Texas, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.
"Take what you want, Gustav," said a sign scribbled on the back window of one car. "Katrina left us with nothing anyway."
Another read: "Down but not out. We'll be back, Gustav."
It was initially feared it would become a category four hurricane as it hit the Louisiana coast but late last night, Gustav was assessed as a category three. However, it was expected to gain strength before making landfall in the US.
Cubans last night started to return from shelters to find flooded homes and washed-out roads after Gustav roared across the island.
No deaths were reported but officials measured gusts of 212mph – a new national record.
Gustav had earlier killed 94 people by triggering floods and landslides in Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica.
The scale of the US preparations and relatively slick execution of emergency plans in New Orleans contrasted sharply with the chaos that surrounded the Hurricane Katrina disaster almost exactly three years ago, in which evacuation orders were issued too late and tens of thousands were left stranded in a flooded city.
Tourists and those without the means to leave town were directed to 17 pick-up points to await transport provided by city and state authorities. Up to 16,000 of those evacuees were being airlifted to other cities around the US on charter flights paid for by the federal government; others were put on trains or buses.
The Red Cross said it was expecting to shelter 500,000 evacuees from across the Gulf Coast region and stood ready to provide 750,000 meals a day. Hotels within a six-hour drive of New Orleans were fully booked. National Guardsmen using loud hailers went from street to street, urging residents to leave, and knocking on doors to check compliance.
Gloria Guy, 68, who was rescued after spending nine hours on the roof of her flooded home during Hurricane Katrina, was reluctantly leaving with her three children and eight grandchildren.
She saw neighbours die in the 2005 disaster, after a wall of water swept through protective levees holding back a canal, but did not believe tragedy could strike the neighbourhood twice.
"I'm not worried about it, because I have asked God to let the storm go back out to sea because I think we have been through enough tragedy and hardship. I'm surviving this time on faith," she said.
But Heicke Boecken, a local pastor, said: "People are really scared. Once you have experienced being in the water, you don't want to experience it again but, on the other hand, a lot of people are just tired of being away from home in shelters." She planned to stay as "if the church leaves, it's like the captain abandoning his ship".
In St Bernard, one of New Orleans' outer parishes that is likely to suffer flooding from the storm surge across the marshes, Linda and Robert Templet walked around their house taking video footage and photographs, fearful there may be nothing left when they return after the storm.
"It's a terrible feeling," said Mrs Templet, whose last home was destroyed during Katrina. "We'll take with us what we saved last time, but that's not much – mainly photos."
Radio stations urged evacuees to take insurance policies with them as they fled.
On the city's west bank – which remained out of the danger zone during Katrina but which weathermen say could face floods and heavy wind damage this time – a Briton who runs a pub dismissed the warnings to leave. "The general consensus here is the mayor is covering his back after the colossal muck-up over Katrina," he said.
But Mr Nagin warned there would be no-one to help people once the storm hit, and that the Superdome, the stadium that housed 26,000 refugees during Hurricane Katrina, would not be opened this time. Emergency services were leaving only a skeleton staff behind.
"If you decide to stay, you are on your own," said Mr Nagin.
"Make sure you have an axe, because you will be carving your way out of your attic to get on your roof, with waters that will be surrounding you."
