Hurricane Gustav weakens as it closes in on Louisiana coastline

NEW ORLEANS – A weakened Hurricane Gustav closed in on flood-prone coastal Louisiana on Monday, bringing punishing wind and sheets of rain. But the storm veered away from New Orleans, where only a few holdouts and those that refused to abandon Bourbon Street remained.

Gusts snapped large branches from the majestic oak trees that form a canopy over St. Charles Avenue. Tens of thousands were without power in New Orleans and other low-lying parishes, but officials said backup generators were keeping city drainage pumps in service.

As a nervous nation watched to see if Gustav would deliver another Katrina-style hit on the partially rebuilt city, officials steadfastly insisted three years of planning and infrastructure upgrades had prepared them for whatever was to come.

"We don't expect the loss of life, certainly, that we saw in Katrina," Federal Emergency Management Agency Deputy Director Harvey E. Johnson told The Associated Press. "But we are expecting a lot of homes to be damaged, a lot of infrastructure to be flooded, and damaged severely."

FEMA estimated there were only about 10,000 people left in the city, and the state said about 100,000 remained on the coast. Nearly 2 million people answered the call to leave south Louisiana in the days before Gustav's arrival, a massive evacuation effort designed to avoid the nearly 1,600 deaths suffered when Hurricane Katrina struck an unprepared Gulf Coast in 2005.

New Orleans police superintendent Warren Riley said there had been no reports of looting or calls for rescue. The Superdome was locked up and city officials stuck to their pledge not to open a shelter of last resort. Public officials sternly warned in the days leading up to the storm that anyone leaving their homes after a dawn-to-dusk curfew was imposed would be swiftly thrown behind bars.

"We're determined to keep this city safe for our people," he said.

Evacuees watched television coverage from shelters and hotel rooms hundreds of miles away, praying the powerful Category 2 storm and its 115-mph winds would pass without the exacting Katrina's toll.

"We're nervous, but we just have to keep trusting in God that we don't get the water again," said Lyndon Guidry, who hit the road for Florida just a few months after he was able to return to his home in New Orleans. "We just have to put our faith in God."

Gustav killed at least 94 people as it tore through the Caribbean before moving into the oil-rich Gulf. Billions of dollars were at stake, as Gustav threatened industries ranging from sugar to shipping. If production is significantly interrupted from the region's refineries and offshore oil and gas platforms, price spikes could hit all Americans at the pump.

Officials promised they were ready to respond this time. Johnson said FEMA had stockpiled enough food, water, ice and other supplies to take care of 1 million victims for three days. Also in place were high-water vehicles, helicopters and fixed-wing planes, plus Coast Guard cutters and a Navy vessel that is essentially a floating emergency room.

"It's amazing. It makes me feel really good that so many people are saying, 'We as Americans, we as the world, have to get this right this time,'" New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said. "We cannot afford to screw up again."

Even presidential politics bowed to the storm, as the Republican Party scaled back its convention plans in deference to Gustav's threat. Battered by criticism that the government's response to Katrina was inadequate, President Bush scrapped his Monday appearance at the convention and instead headed to Texas to monitor the storm.

Gustav weakened Monday to a Category 2 storm as its eyewall rolled onto land. Katrina made landfall as a strong Category 3, which has sustained winds of between 111 mph and 130 mph.

At 8 a.m., the storm's center was located about 85 miles south of New Orleans and was moving northwest at 16 mph. It had top sustained winds of 110 mph.

In New Orleans, officials were anxiously watching to see what kind of storm surge the city would face: If forecasts hold, the city could experience a storm surge of only 4 to 6 feet, compared to a surge of 10 to 14 feet at the site of landfall, said Corey Walton, a hurricane support meteorologist with the National Hurricane Center.

Katrina, by comparison, brought a storm surge of 25 feet, causing levees to break. While the Army Corps of Engineers has shored up some of the city's levee system since then, fears this time center on the city's West Bank, where levee repairs have not been completed.

Gustav was the seventh named storm in the Atlantic hurricane season. The eighth, Tropical Storm Hanna, was strengthening about 100 miles from the Bahamas. Though a storm's track and intensity are difficult to predict days in advance, long-term projections showed the storm could come ashore along the border of Georgia and South Carolina late in the week.