Georges takes aim at Louisiana

AP PHOTO New Orleans resident Joey Sansovich pushes his bicycle through floodwaters on a walkway along Lake Ponchartrain

yesterday. Sansovich decided to stay in New Orleans through Hurricane Georges.

The Washington Post

NEW ORLEANS - The leading edge of Hurricane Georges lashed the northern Gulf Coast along Alabama and Mississippi with high winds and driving rain yesterday and then took aim here, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee inland.

In all, more than 1.5 million people were ordered to leave New Orleans and low-lying coastal areas nearby, and more than 15,000 descended on the city's nine emergency shelters, including the cavernous Louisiana Superdome and the sprawling riverside Ernest Morial Convention Center.

The center of the storm, which already killed more than 300 people during a week-long rampage through the Caribbean and Florida Keys, was crawling along the Gulf Coast at 8 mph, and forecasters said it probably will slow even more. The fear was that Georges would hang over the Mississippi Delta, suspended by a cool front that is headed south toward the region. If that happens, forecasters said, as much as 30 inches of rain could fall over two days.

As the storm, packing winds of up to 110 mph, churned in the Gulf of Mexico toward the mouth of the Mississippi River, its outer fringes began to whip the coast with 50 mph winds and offshore waves up to 33 feet. A hurricane warning was in effect from Panama City, Fla., to Morgan City, La., and forecasters predicted Georges could spawn tornadoes as it made landfall and moved northwest.

"This is an absolutely worst-case scenario," said James Lee Witt, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, after conferring by telephone with President Clinton, Vice President Al Gore and the governors of the affected states. "We've got the potential for a major disaster down there."

Witt said Georges posed the worst threat to this city since Hurricane Betsy roared across the Gulf Coast in 1965, killing 61 people in Louisiana and causing millions of dollars in damage as it flooded downtown New Orleans and other low-lying areas. Another big storm, Camille, slammed into the coast of Mississippi and Louisiana in 1969, causing widespread flooding before continuing as far north as Virginia and leaving 259 dead.

While no amount of preparation could handle what Georges was expected to throw at the northern Gulf Coast over the next two days, Witt said, even before the storm system passed by the Virgin Islands last week, FEMA began deploying emergency workers, flying in search-and-rescue and medical teams and positioning emergency equipment such as generators, water pumps, sandbags, tents, cots and plastic sheeting used to cover houses whose roofs have been ripped off.

Witt said his most serious concern is that a storm surge as high as 15 to 20 feet could drive Lake Pontchartrain over its levees and submerge New Orleans just as storm-whipped water is driven up the Mississippi River toward the city. For a city that sits below sea level and is surrounded by tidal lakes, swamps and the Mississippi River, the results could be catastrophic, he said.

"We're the best city in America, but this may not have been the best place 300 years ago to place a city," said Mayor Marc Morial.

Witt said the Army Corps of Engineers had been checking the levees on Pontchartrain and had positioned barges with massive water pumps, while FEMA put in place a million bags that could be filled for emergency shoring.

Many New Orleans residents who had planned to weather the storm at home changed their minds yesterday and dashed to the highways as Saturday's balmy weather gave way to darker skies and gusty winds.

Residents raced to get out of the area by noon when officials said high winds would force state troopers to close all highways.

"I got scared at the last minute," said Dorothy Carradine, as she packed luggage and pictures and her 10-member family into a two-car caravan.

"I'm not sure where we're going," she said, "but it looks bad enough to get out of here."

Morial called for a mandatory 6 p.m. curfew in the city and issued an urgent appeal for volunteer doctors and nurses to report to the Superdome.

New Orleans International Airport, which was closed to air traffic, was transformed into an emergency shelter after the city's main evacuation route, Interstate 10, was closed at noon.

"I said to myself, 'Oh, Lord, please let there be some place to go.' " said Schena Lewis, as she herded her family into a crowded meeting room at the 69,000-seat Superdome. Although she described the accommodations as uncomfortable and the crowd of 10,000 chaotic, Lewis said she'd be glad to call the stadium home until Georges' fury had passed.

In the nearly deserted French Quarter, tourists wandered in search of food and supplies. "It feels like we're the only ones left," said Sue Turner, who was in town from Philadelphia for a pharmaceuticals convention. "We couldn't get a flight out or a rental car. We're going to ride it out at our hotel because we have no choice."

With a video camera he bought to film Bourbon Street's carnival atmosphere, Dave Turner, caught instead eerie desolation.

In a residential area of downtown New Orleans, Shona Foster, waited 45 minutes to get into a corner grocery store. She left with crackers, bread and water.

Along Interstate 10, which stretches east-west across the gulf states, traffic was sparse and visibility clouded as motorists drove with their headlights on throughout the day.

Early in the day, authorities across the area closed bridges leading to barrier islands as tides rose steadily, lapping roadways even before the worst of the anticipated downpour had fallen. As Georges moved closer to shore, the list of mandatory evacuations and curfews grew.

In Mobile, Ala., along Dauphin Island Parkway, businesses and homes were shuttered and people flocked to stores making last-minute preparations.

In the West Bay Hardware and Marine Store, residents lined up to buy emergency supplies. Owner Steve Powe, 47, said that over the past two days he's sold a lot of batteries, plywood and ropes for tying down boats. By 2 p.m., he had leased all 10 of his power generators and sold more than 1,000 gallons of propane fuel to residents who wanted to be able to cook despite predicted power outages.

Residents of the Florida Keys who had fled Georges last week began returning to their homes in a slowly moving traffic jam more than two miles long that inched along the Overseas Highway, the only road to the 100-mile-long archipelago. Many residents, anxious to check their homes for storm damage, waited in their cars all night at the entrance of the causeway and fumed at authorities for not opening the highway until long after the hurricane had passed. Emergency officials, however, said downed power lines were hazardous to drivers.

Authorities reported the first Florida fatality from Georges, whose 100 mph winds tore apart houseboats, flattened mobile homes and knocked out power Friday. The victim, police said, was a man who fell off a dry-docked boat near Key West after hauling it out of the water to protect it from the storm.

With the main power line carrying electricity to the islands disrupted, a Key West City Electric spokeswoman said power might not be restored for a week. Residents were ordered to boil drinking water because of the threat of contamination.

09-28-98