Forecasters: Gustav strengthens into a hurricane
Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center said Friday afternoon that Gustav had grown into a Category 1 storm, and remained on track to strike anywhere from the Florida Panhandle to eastern Texas sometime next week.
The news came only hours after New Orleans lay to rest the last seven unclaimed Katrina victims. A horse-drawn carriage brought the bodies for entombment at a memorial site, and the mayor helped guide a gleaming casket into a mausoleum.
The ceremonies were tinged with an awareness of how far the city has come since Katrina, but also a trepidation about the possibility of another storm.
"We look ahead to a better day, as we also prepare ourselves for another threat," Mayor Ray Nagin said as he helped guide a gleaming coffin into a mausoleum.
Most other remembrances were called off as officials scurried to plan for Hurricane Gustav. National Guard members were reporting to armories, while some nursing homes and hospitals planned to start moving patients further inland and the state began moving 9,000 inmates from coastal lockups.
Gustav has been blamed for 71 deaths on its path through Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. Along the Gulf Coast, officials were preparing for the possibility of major evacuations should the storm stay on track. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour had already called for the evacuation of Katrina-scarred residents still living in trailers and other temporary housing along the state's 70-mile coastline. The mayor of Grand Isle, La., also called for voluntary evacuations.
President Bush declared an emergency in Louisiana, a move that allows the federal government to coordinate disaster relief and provide assistance in storm-affected areas. A federal declaration before a storm is rare, but Bush took a similar action for Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida before Katrina's landfall.
An evacuation order for New Orleans was likely, Nagin said, but not before Saturday. Gustav confounded emergency preparedness officials as its forecast track shifted slightly through the day, confronting them with the possibility of ordering evacuations not only in the potentially vulnerable New Orleans area but across more than 200 miles of coastline.
Harvey Johnson, deputy administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said during a conference call that he expects a "huge number" of Gulf Coast residents will be told to leave the region this weekend.
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