_{Lovely friends, thank you :)}

_{New Orleans - Nearly 1 million Gulf Coast residents fled the path of hurricane Gustav this weekend – a sign that emergency preparations among residents and public officials alike, if not perfectly smooth, are improved since hurricane Katrina swamped New Orleans and flattened parts of the Mississippi coast three years ago.}

_{As major interstates filled during a bumper-to-bumper exodus Sunday, residents – some carrying fridges and dryers in pickup trucks – skedaddled toward Houston, Memphis, Tenn., and Atlanta to escape a storm that the National Hurricane Center called "a big boy."}

_{The precautions are needed, as Gustav is likely to challenge New Orleans' up-armored but unfinished levees. The event is also a test of a complex evacuation plan put into full force Saturday afternoon. Louisiana Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu worried Sunday that as many as 20,000 vulnerable New Orleanians had yet to heed the evacuation orders.}

_{"Are the preparations better today than they were before Katrina? Absolutely, positively," says Brian Wolshon, a Louisiana State University emergency response expert. "They took their lumps with Katrina. The problem is there's no telling if conditions will be the same [with Gustav]."}

_{After a full-scale revamp of the region's emergency capabilities, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and state and local officials know they cannot permit another embarrassing and deadly fiasco. Staging of buses, boats, and generators began early last week throughout the region, and 2,000 National Guard troops were activated.}

_{As Republicans gathered for their national convention in Minnesota, Americans watched government reaction closely, says Susan Cutter, a storm expert at the University of South Carolina. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), who was elected in part because citizens perceived him to be a more effective on-the-ground responder than other public officials, including former Gov. Kathleen Blanco, moved unprecedented resources into the area. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin announced a dusk-to-dawn curfew at 11:30 p.m. EDT, effective Sunday night. President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney decided to forgo the Republican National Convention to be on hand for emergency management.}

_{"Politically, the Republicans can't afford a second hit," says Professor Cutter.}

_{DHS chief Michael Chertoff and FEMA head David Paulson toured the area late in the week as a show of federal support. Mr. Paulson said the preparations indicated "a new philosophy" for the federal government to move aggressively to protect major cities from storms.}

_{The real shift, however, didn't come from FEMA but from DHS, says Cutter. "They already know how to do this stuff," she says of FEMA. But DHS seemed woefully out of touch after Katrina's stormwaters busted through the London, 17th Street, and Industrial canal levees and flooded nearly 80 percent of the Crescent City nearly three years to the day of Gustav's projected landfall.}

_{Gustav was gaining strength Sunday, with tropical force winds extending 200 miles from the eye. But its path is not yet clear; the storm appeared to make a slight jag to the west Sunday morning, amid projections it would make landfall at southwestern Louisiana and then track into Texas as a tropical storm. The greatest threat, authorities say, is the potential for a 20-foot storm surge that could overtop the region's vast fortifications.}

_{"This is desperate," says Jackie Clarkson, New Orleans City Council chairwoman.}

_{As the US Army Corps of Engineers and local authorities rushed to shore up levees on the vulnerable West Bank of New Orleans, which largely escaped Katrina's punch, officials made no promises that up-armored levees would hold. Of particular concern is the Harvey Canal in Jefferson Parish, widely seen as a weak point in the system. In fact, only about one-third of the city's $12 billion new levee system has been completed. With storm-surge projections of up to 20 feet and many levees at eight feet, overtopping seems likely if the storm holds its course.}

_{On Saturday, buses began taking evacuees from 17 points around the city to Union Terminal, where charter buses and trains zipped them out of town. Some 14,000 residents had been moved by the time the bus evacuation ended at noon Sunday. The Super Dome, the scene of such misery after Katrina, will be locked and guarded. There will be no "shelter of last resort," authorities say. If there were any doubts about the storm's potential, Mayor Nagin extinguished those Saturday night when he used unusually strong language to urge people to leave, calling Gustav "the storm of the century" and "the mother of all storms."}

_{"You need to get your butts out," the famously laid-back mayor told residents Saturday night, taking a much sharper tone than during the pre-Katrina days. "You need to be scared."}

_{New Orleanians took notice. Resident Patrick Green said the city, which has regained nearly 90 percent of its residents since Katrina, had finally begun to feel normal. "I don't know where I'm going, but it doesn't matter: It's time to go," says Mr. Green. Looking around at the mostly empty streets, Green says, "I'm leaving a ghost town."}

_{Yet hopes for a 100 percent evacuation dimmed Sunday morning as authorities declared a noon deadline to hop an evacuation bus. What had been a crush of evacuees had slowed through Saturday. "I'm a little troubled," says Lieutenant Governor Landrieu.}

_{The evacuation was not eventless. Traffic on Saturday was backed up more than 20 miles on I-10 into Mobile, Ala. A new ID bracelet system intended to link evacuees together via the Web crashed on Saturday at Union Terminal. Officials said evacuees will instead be logged in at shelters, but those added logistics may become daunting in the next few days because shelters are spread across the Gulf Coast and may not be equipped to log in evacuees. One logistics contractor, David Young, said the city seemed to be scrambling on some fronts to prepare. In Jefferson Parish, some 700 people waited in vain Saturday for buses to pick them up, according to reports.}

_{Garden District resident Alan Drake, a gardener, says he plans to stay, as he did through Katrina. "I'll have a lot of my clients' homes cleaned up by the time they get back," he says.}

_{"We've got quite a few people staying, most of them from Mexico and Puerto Rico," says New Orleans resident Fred Wilson, who stayed through Katrina before being evacuated two weeks later at gunpoint. "I think people are saying they'll survive the best they can. But this is a greater force than Katrina."}

_{After Katrina, the city partnered with emergency experts and charities to figure out how to appeal to the most vulnerable residents, the elderly, to leave during storm emergencies, says John Kiefer, an emergency expert at the University of New Orleans. Yet the city began distributing pamphlets explaining the new procedures only last week.}

_{Mr. Kiefer says officials were surprised to learn that the elderly hung on through Katrina because of the uncertainties implicit in an emergency evacuation. To assuage that, officials have been clearer about where evacuees are going and where they'll be staying. Residents who returned, too, "have a different risk perspective," says Cutter of the University of South Carolina. "The people who came back are really committed to the city, and this is all very personal to them now."}

_{Abandoned pets became a huge issue during Katrina, triggering special legislation in Lousiana to avoid the misery of survival for animals in a flooded city. Animal rescue groups scrambled over the weekend to take possession of pets at Union Terminal Station, to be returned after the storm. Unlike during Katrina, many residents were allowed to take small, and sometimes larger, animals on the evacuation buses.}

_{"I'm still praying this is just a big drill," says animal rescue worker Brenda Shoss, wearing a duct-tape name tag.}

_{Those who stay will encounter a skeleton crew of law-enforcement officers who will treat anybody on the street as a suspicious person, says Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish. The idea is to guarantee that property will be protected against looters – a main reason so many residents decided to ride out Katrina. "If you stay," Mr. Broussard warns, "this will be no Mayberry."}

_{"We've learned from our mistakes," says New Orleans Police Officer B. Francois. "And this time, if we arrest someone, they're not going to the local jail. They're getting on a bus to Angola," the infamous rural prison farm.}

_{Outside New Orleans, many shrimpers, who lost most of their fleet to Katrina, skippered boats up into inland waters. Others secured them as well as they could to the docks in eastern Orleans Parish.}

_{"This is where the fun starts," says fisherman Tony deBram, grimly.}

_{Thank you Nick :)}

_{NEW ORLEANS — Anxious evacuees across the country clamored to come home Tuesday after their city was largely spared by Hurricane Gustav, but Mayor Ray Nagin warned they may have to wait in shelters and motels a few days longer.}

_{The city's improved levee system helped avert a disaster like Hurricane Katrina, which flooded most of the city, and officials got an assist from a disorganized and weakened Gustav, which came ashore about 72 miles southwest of the city Monday morning. Eight deaths were attributed to the storm in the U.S. after it killed at least 94 people across the Caribbean.}

_{But New Orleans was still a city that took a glancing blow from a hurricane: A mandatory evacuation order and curfew remained in effect. Electric crews started work on restoring power to the nearly 80,000 homes and businesses in New Orleans — and more than 1 million in the region — that remained without power after the storm damaged transmission lines that snapped like rubber bands in the wind.}

_{"We have a massive caravan of crews coming to the city and they should be here this morning to fix the rest of the power outages," Nagin said on CBS "Early Show."}

_{The city's sewer system was damaged, and hospitals were working with skeleton crews on backup power. Drinking water continued to flow in the city and the pumps that keep it dry never shut down — two critical service failings that contributed to Katrina's toll. The FAA said the city's airport was expected to reopen at 7 p.m.}

_{Gustav was downgraded to a tropical depression early Tuesday, and mandatory evacuation orders were lifted for three Southeast Texas counties. The storm's maximum sustained winds decreased to near 35 mph as it puttered toward northern Louisiana and east Texas. Up to 8 inches of rain was expected and flood warnings were posted.}

_{Nagin cautioned that Tuesday would be too early for residents to return to New Orleans, but their homecoming was "only days away, not weeks." He apologized to the Republicans, which put the pagentry of their convention on hold to wait for Gustav to move through the Gulf Coast.}

_{"You know, I think Gustav rained on their parade, on their little party," said Nagin, a Democrat, who cut his own trip short to his party's convention to prepare for the storm. "And hopefully they can rekindle. We'd love to host them in New Orleans next week, and they can come down and we can show them how to really do it right."}

_{Crews would comb the city Tuesday to fully review the damage, Nagin said, with the goal of having residents return beginning late Wednesday or Thursday. Retailers and other major companies could start sending workers Wednesday to check on their locations, he said. Buses are in place and ready to bring residents back with instructions to drop them off as close as possible to their homes.}

_{The state and city took pride in a massive evacuation effort that succeeded in urging people to leave or catch buses and trains out: Almost 2 million people left coastal Louisiana, and only about 10,000 people rode out the storm in New Orleans.}

_{"I would not do a thing differently," Nagin said. "I'd probably call Gustav, instead of the mother of all storms, maybe the mother-in-law or the ugly sister of all storms."}

_{But in shelters, people far away from their homes were growing restless in convention centers and gymnasiums. Fights broke out at an overcrowded shelter in Shreveport. Doctors worried about medications running out and seven people were hospitalized, all in stable condition.}

_{"People are desperate. They don't know if they are going to have a place to go home to," said Emma McClure, 37, who was at the shelter with her three children, three sisters and some 20 nephews. "They had three years to plan this and now I wish I had stayed in the city like I did during Katrina."}

_{Oil companies and rig owners, which shut down virtually all oil and natural gas production in the Gulf as Gustav approached, headed out to look for damage. Some were already putting equipment and people back in place to resume operations, and a $8 drop in the price of a barrel suggests traders are confident the storm didn't cause much damage.}

_{President Bush, who monitored the storm from Texas, said that while it's too early to assess Hurricane Gustav's damage to U.S. oil infrastructure off the Gulf Coast, it should prompt Congress to OK more domestic oil production. He said when Congress comes back from recess, lawmakers "need to understand" that the nation needs more, not less domestic energy production.}

_{Though the big city was spared, Gustav devastated parts of Cajun country, destroying homes and flooding parts of the mostly rural, low-lying parishes across the state's southeastern and central coast that are also home to the state's oil and natural gas industries.}

_{There was also worry about damage to the fishing industry. With a worn blue-and-white cap on his head, Louisiana fisherman Martin Barthelemy sat in a hotel lobby in Alabama watching televised reports about the storm. Barthelemy, who spent $100,000 rebuilding his 47-foot fishing boat after Katrina, feared that seawater pushed inland by Gustav will wipe out the delicate oyster beds he's counting on for a livelihood this fall.}

_{"That salt water will kill 'em," said Barthelemy, 67. "We'll have to wait a week or two to know what happened."}

_{Roofs were torn from homes, trees toppled and roads flooded. A ferry sank. Telephone service was spotty at best. Parts of the Mississippi Gulf Coast were isolated by flood waters, and Gov. Haley Barbour urged residents not to return to their homes until Wednesday.}

_{More than 50 patients had to be evacuated overnight from two small community hospitals in central Louisiana after the storm knocked out their generators, according to Richard Zuschlag, chief executive of Acadian Ambulance. The patients were taken to two Lafayette hospitals.}

_{Gov. Bobby Jindal said he heard reports of widespread damage across Terrebonne, Lafourche and St. Mary parishes, all near where the eye of the storm hit. Crews were expected to fan out and in search of injured or killed people with helicopter crews.}

_{To the east of the city, Jindal said state officials were planning an aerial tour on Tuesday to gauge damage to Port Fourchon, a vital energy industry hub where huge amounts of oil and gas are piped inland to refineries.}

_{Two houses built up on pilings to avoid flooding were not spared by the wind that tore through Montegut, a small Terrebonne Parish town south of Houma.}

_{Across a narrow bayou running past the houses, globs of yellow insulation had collected in a tree and a neighbor's chain-link fence.}

_{One of the homes had part of a wall ripped away, exposing a room with two plaques on the wall, one of which read: "Ashley Pennison, 2000-2001 honor graduate, 3.5 GPA."}

_{The remnants of her childhood lay scattered about the soggy grass, including strung-together letter-shaped pillows spelling out her first name along with an assortment of miniature clowns.}

_{Danny Price, the owner of a grocery store across the street, said he stayed home for the storm, but he might not the next time.}

_{"I got scared," he said. "It was bad when the wind started rolling in. This was a picture to see: trees snapping off, fences blowing down and that wind just coming down the driveway over 100 miles per hour. It gets you scared. It's not something to play with. I don't think I'm going to stay for another one."}

Congratulations to Governor Bobby Jindal (R) who led the evacuation of 1,900,000 Louisiana residents within a few days!  Gov. Jindal has ONLY been in office for 8 months.  He's a sharp contrast to Governor Kathleen Blanco (D) who's dismal leadership during Hurricane Katrina led to her ousting!  Obviously, governors DO get more experience within a very short time compared to senators! 

_{Thanks Kathy for your comments. Hurricane Gustav may trigger insurance claims as high as $10 billion including damage to oil facilities, according to risk management firms that issued preliminary estimates a day after the storm struck Louisiana.}

_{While total losses won't be known for weeks or months, insurance companies on Tuesday, armed with adjusters and appraisers, assessed damage from Gustav, which was downgraded to a tropical depression as it continued to move over Louisiana.}

_{"It's still really early and we're definitely evaluating the damage that happened," said Matt Bordonaro, spokesman for The Travelers Group. "We are seeing more of a wind event, than a flood event."}

_{Forecasters had feared a catastrophic Category 4 storm, a more fierce version of Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall three years ago last week on the Gulf Coast as a Category 3 hurricane.}

_{Gustav came ashore Monday morning as a relatively fast-moving Category 2 hurricane. It weakened as it made landfall near Cocodrie, La., about 70 miles southwest of New Orleans, keeping losses on land between $3 billion to $7 billion and oil-drilling damage at about $1 billion to $3 billion, according to early estimates from Newark, Calif.-based Risk Management Solutions Inc.}

_{Other estimates placed insured losses on land ranging from $6 billion to $10 billion, primarily in Louisiana.}

_{"The fears were that Gustav might be a repeat of Hurricane Katrina," said Peter Daily, director of atmospheric science at the catastrophe risk modeling firm AIR Worldwide Corp. in Boston. "Gustav, however, was both smaller and weaker."}

_{AIR Worldwide places preliminary losses on land ranging between $2 billion and $4.5 billion.}

_{For offshore exposures in the Gulf of Mexico, AIR Worldwide estimates that losses could exceed $10 billion. These losses reflect wind and wave damage to platforms and direct and indirect losses of revenue because of reductions in oil and gas production.}

_{Industry analysts warn, however, that computerized data on insurance losses may understate actual costs because the figure don't include damage to uninsured property or destruction caused by actions excluded from some policies, such as flooding.}

_{Even so, insurance companies "are prepared to absorb this magnitude of an event," said Richard Attanasio, vice president for personal lines ratings at A.M. Best Co., a credit rating agency based in Oldwick, N.J.}

_{Gustav was the first test since 2005 of the insurance industry's efforts to reduce losses in catastrophe-prone regions. Late last week, insurers sent catastrophe units as well as claims representatives to the Gulf region ahead of the storm's landfall.}

_{Katrina, which struck three years ago last month, was the single largest natural disaster loss in the history of the insurance industry. Insurers paid $41 billion arising from 1.7 million claims for damage to homes, businesses and vehicles to policy holders in six states. Hurricane Andrew - the previous record holder - produced $15.5 billion in losses in 1992 and 790,000 claims.}

_{Several insurance companies, including Allstate Corp. (nyse: ALL - news - people ) and State Farm Insurance Cos. - the two largest U.S. home insurers - raised policy rates and also cut back on the insurance they offer in areas most vulnerable to tropical storms in the months following the storm.}

_{"There has been a lot of changes since the 2005 event, in terms of companies and their risk management approach," said Jeffrey Mango, managing senior financial analyst at A.M. Best. "This is part of the business that these companies are in and they need to manage through that."}