Gustav weakens to category 2 storm

Gusts snapped large branches from the oak trees 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 said. “But we are expecting a lot of homes to be damaged, a lot of infrastructure to be flooded, and damaged severely.”

On the high ground in the French Quarter, nasty winds whipped signs and the purple, green and gold Mardi Gras flags hanging from cast-iron balconies. Like the rest of the city, the Quarter’s normally boisterous streets were deserted save for a police officer standing watch every few blocks and a few early-morning drinkers in the city’s famous bars.

FEMA estimated there were only about 10,000 people left in the city, and the state said about 1,00,000 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 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. 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.

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