Around this time, several of the most vulnerable parishes join Jefferson in urging citizens to evacuate. In the morning conference call, officials discuss the state's 50-hour evacuation plan and begin to implement the plan to alter the traffic patterns on major highways around New Orleans to send all lanes of traffic away from the city. (They call it "contraflow.")
The state is divided into red, orange, and yellow zones, depending on an area's vulnerability. Red areas (such as Grand Isle and most of St. Bernard Parish) are the most at risk and these begin evacuating first, with a 10-hour head start. Orange areas move next. At 30 hours before landfall, the contraflow begins. (One quirk: The state cannot order an evacuation; each parish must issue its own order. "We recommend, we strongly advise, hell, we even beg" parishes to evacuate, says Smith.)
At 4 p.m., the state reverses the inbound lanes so that all traffic is headed outbound. The idea is to avoid some of the horrendous traffic jams that New Orleans experienced before Hurricane Ivan, 11 months earlier.
"Even with the new plans, because of Louisiana's limited infrastructure, we knew traffic was going to be severe," says Smith. The emergency center also works with Louisiana's Wildlife and Fisheries department to prestage some 100 boats inside and outside the city for the anticipated rescue operations.
Serise is still working to get the special-needs shelters up and running. The Louisiana National Guard is bringing cots and other equipment in, while generators are coming from all over the place. One truck is on its way from Illinois. At the same time, Serise is getting calls from several parishes asking him not to open the shelters too early because they are trying to encourage as many people as possible to evacuate. By this time, Serise knows the storm is coming and time is running out.
SUNDAY, August 28
On Sunday, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin calls for a mandatory evacuation.
"It was the right call," says Doran. Louisiana National Guard troops are sent to the Superdome to establish a "special needs shelter" for evacuees who needed medical attention but couldn't leave the city in time. Thibodeaux realizes that they didn't have enough troops and recommends to his commanders to call up reinforcements. Additional troops are activated and New Orleans begins its evacuation in earnest.
On Blanco's request, President Bush declares a state of emergency, freeing up desperately needed federal resources. FEMA begins staging supplies at Camp Beauregard. The idea was to stage them outside of the danger zone, so that they would not be damaged during the storm. Some assets are stationed as far away as Houston and Shreveport.
"Most of us in the agency hadn't been home for yet and would not see home for quite some time," says Smith. Still, the evacuation is going quite smoothly, especially compared with Ivan. Traffic is slow, but it is moving. In all, some 1.4 million people evacuate. In vulnerable St. Bernard Parish, officials estimate that 90 to 92 percent of a population of more than 60,000 heeded their mandatory evacuation.
"Unless someone is willing to spend $1 billion before the storm and have it possibly miss, I don't think that we could have done better," says Doran. "If you look back at it, it was a major feat."
Still, not everyone has the means to leave the city. Thibodeaux estimates that as many as 100,000 to 150,000 people in New Orleans failed to heed the evacuation call. The state designates the Superdome as a special needs shelter, complete with medical care, staging a National Guard contingent of 400 soldiers there for security.
"But you just know people are going to end up there as well," Serise says. Indeed, even before the storm hits, some 10,000 people pack into the Superdome, which turns into a de facto shelter of last resort.
Thibodeaux begins to plan for post-storm evacuations and search-and-rescue missions, monitoring the resources ready to move into the city once Katrina clears out. In the final conference call before the storm, a FEMA representative assures the parish presidents that resources are pre-staged; they just need 48 to 60 hours to get things out to everybody.
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