"From there it's maybe a shelter somewhere," she said uneasily.
By midafternoon, rain was already pelting Gulfport, Miss., a coastal city scoured by Katrina in 2005 but now a prime destination for evacuees. After trying in vain for a room in hotels as far north as Hattiesburg, Louisiana refugees Mary Pierre and her son, Demarius, staggered into a Best Western, desperate for a "yes."
The desk clerk turned them down, but housekeeper Tajuana Cox volunteered her king-size bed for the night. "That is so wonderful," the exhausted Pierre exclaimed, wrapping Cox in a grateful hug.
By day's end, New Orleans' population of 239,000 had shrunk to little more than 10,000, Jindal said. He voiced hope that the number would be further reduced as officials intensified their pleas to leave.
Police vans with loudspeakers made their rounds through nightfall, patrolling abandoned neighborhoods and issuing mandatory evacuation orders to holdouts in English, Spanish and Vietnamese.
Most of the city's populated neighborhoods were already abandoned, and only small groups of the elderly and infirm lined up for the last buses and trains out of town.
Jerome Dilliole, 72, showed up with a small shoulder bag at the city's train station just after 11 a.m., less than an hour before the city said it would shut down the evacuation program. Dilliole said he wanted to stay because his wife is seriously ill at a downtown hospital. But the hospital would not let him stay, he said, and "I can't just wander the streets."
Dilliole said it pained him to leave his wife, but he was afraid to stay in his house, in the city's 7th Ward, which suffered heavy flooding in 2005.
"Uh-uh -- no way I'm staying," Dilliole said. "The hurricane's coming, and it's going to chase me all the way out of town."
Jindal echoed Nagin's stern call for citizens to evacuate and said that 7,000 National Guard troops had been deployed in the state -- 1,500 of them in New Orleans -- to aid in disaster preparations and prepare for rescue and public safety needs after Gustav strikes. An additional 16,000 Guardsmen are due to arrive in the next day, Jindal said.
"Don't take a chance of riding out this storm," Jindal warned residents.
In Washington, President Bush announced that he would not attend the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., which now appears threatened with a reduced lineup as it prepares to nominate John McCain and his newly announced running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
