NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Hurricane Katrina edged slightly to the east early Monday as it bore down on the Gulf Coast, providing some hope that the worst of the storm's 150 mph winds might not directly strike this low-lying city. Katrina, which weakened slightly overnight to a strong Category 4 storm, turned slightly eastward as it closed in on land, which would put the western eyewall—the weaker side of the strongest winds—over New Orleans.
The National Hurricane Center said Katrina had made landfall just east of Grand Isle.
"It's not as bad as the eastern side. It'll be plenty bad enough," said Eric Blake of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Mayor Ray Nagin said he believed 80 percent of the city's 480,000 residents had heeded an unprecedented mandatory evacuation as Katrina threatened to become the most powerful storm ever to slam the city.
"It's capable of causing catastrophic damage," said National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield. "Even well-built structures will have tremendous damage. Of course, what we're really worried about is the loss of lives.
"New Orleans may never be the same."
Crude oil futures spiked to more than $70 a barrel in Singapore for the first time Monday as Katrina targeted an area crucial to the country's energy infrastructure. The storm already forced the shutdown of an estimated 1 million barrels of refining capacity.
Terry Ebbert, New Orleans director of homeland security, said more than 4,000 National Guardsmen were mobilizing in Memphis and will help police New Orleans streets.
The Louisiana Superdome, normally home of professional football's Saints, became the shelter of last resort Sunday for thousands of the area's poor, homeless and frail. Some arrived on crutches, canes and stretchers, while National Guardsmen searched everyone for guns, knives and drugs.
"We just took the necessities," said Michael Skipper, who pulled a wagon loaded with bags of clothes and a radio. "The good stuff—the television and the furniture—you just have to hope something's there when you get back. If it's not, you just start over."
The head of Jefferson Parish, which includes major suburbs and juts all the way to the storm-vulnerable coast, said some residents who stayed would be fortunate to survive.
"I'm expecting that some people who are die-hards will die hard," said parish council President Aaron Broussard.
The evacuation itself claimed lives. Three New Orleans nursing home residents died Sunday after being taken by bus to a Baton Rouge church. Don Moreau, of the East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner's Office, said the cause was likely dehydration.
By early Monday, there was little more anyone could do but hope. City streets were empty and bars were closed as powerful gusts and blasts of thunder were heard. Landfall of the eye was expected around 8 a.m. at Grand Isle, about 60 miles south of New Orleans.
Katrina, which cut across Florida last week, had intensified into a colossal Category 5 over the warm water of the Gulf of Mexico, reaching top winds of 175 mph before weakening slightly as it neared the coast.
At 5 a.m. EDT, Katrina's eye was 90 miles south-southeast of New Orleans. A hurricane warning was in effect for the north-central Gulf Coast from Morgan City, La., to the Alabama-Florida line.
The storm held a potential surge of 18 to 28 feet that would easily top New Orleans' hurricane protection levees, as well as bigger waves and as much as 15 inches of rain. Tornado warnings were posted for Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.
For years, forecasters have warned of the nightmare scenario a big storm could bring to New Orleans, a bowl of a city that's up to 10 feet below sea level in spots and dependent on a network of levees, canals and pumps to keep dry from the Mississippi River on one side, Lake Pontchartrain on the other.
The fear is that flooding could overrun the levees and turn New Orleans into a toxic lake filled with chemicals and petroleum from refineries, as well as waste from ruined septic systems.
Nagin said he expected the pumping system to fail during the height of the storm. The mayor said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was standing by to get the system running, but water levels must fall first.
"We are facing a storm that most of us have long feared," he said. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime event."
Major highways in New Orleans cleared out late Sunday after more than 24 hours of jammed traffic as people headed inland. At the peak of the evacuation, 18,000 people an hour were streaming out of southeastern Louisiana, state police said.
On inland highways in Louisiana and Mississippi, heavy traffic remained the rule into the night as the last evacuees tried to reach safety. In Orange, Texas, Janie Johnson of the American Red Cross described it as a "river of headlights."
In Washington, D.C., the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it has been advised that the Waterford nuclear plant about 20 miles west of New Orleans has been shut down as a precautionary measure.
New Orleans has not taken a direct hit from a hurricane since Betsy in when an 8- to 10-foot storm surge submerged parts of the city in seven feet of water. Betsy, a Category 3 storm, was blamed for 74 deaths in Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida.
Evacuation orders also were posted all along the Mississippi coast, and the area's casinos, built on barges, were closed early Saturday. Bands of wind-whipped rain increased Sunday night and roads in some low areas were beginning to flood.
"Hopefully it will take a turn and we'll be spared the brunt of it, but it just don't look like that," said James Bosco, who was packing up a final few items from his beachfront apartment in Gulfport. "I just hope everybody makes it all right. We can always rebuild."
Alabama officials issued mandatory evacuation orders for low-lying coastal areas. Mobile Mayor Michael C. Dow said flooding could be worse than the 9-foot surge that soaked downtown during Hurricane Georges in 1998. Residents of several barrier islands in the western Florida Panhandle were also urged to evacuate.
Katrina hit the southern tip of Florida as a much weaker storm Thursday and was blamed for nine deaths. It left miles of streets and homes flooded and knocked out power to about 1.45 million customers. It was the sixth hurricane to hit Florida in just over a year.
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Associated Press reporters Mary Foster, Holbrook Mohr, Brett Martel and Allen G. Breed contributed to this report.
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On the Net:
National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov
