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Hurricane Gustav: A View From The Ground

Too Early To Tell If New Orleans Has Dodged A Bullet As Gustav Makes Landfall

NEW ORLEANS (CBS) ― New Orleans appears to have been spared the worst of Hurricane Gustav. It's just been downgraded to a tropical storm.

Gustav blew ashore as a Category 2, packing 110 mile an hour winds. Eight-hundred thousand customers lost power in Louisiana, and seven deaths are linked to the storm.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said it is too early for evacuees to return.

The levees are holding up, but a private levee to the southeast was in danger of collapse.

Monday night, standing on a floodgate, having reversed the flow of a small channel to ease the pressure on a levee, authorities claimed another small victory in their battle with Hurricane Gustav.

"We worked with the [Army] Corps [of Engineers] to get this operation going, and I think we're successful," said Murray Starkel of Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana.

So far that levee, and all the others, have held, but not without some anxious moments. Plenty of flooding served as a grim reminder of the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina three years ago.

In the French Quarter in New Orleans earlier Monday, there were 50-60 mph winds, rain coming down in sheets and signs blowing all over. Anything not nailed down was blown away.

In advance of the storm, New Orleans was virtually deserted. People were moved out. Law enforcement continue to patrol the streets, and the only cars belong to members of the media or law enforcement.

The evacuation Sunday and Saturday were fairly smooth, but not without incident. There were people that ran out of gas. There is no gas in this area now; no one to pump gas; no one to man the stations that are open. So unless you have a full tank of gas, your car is not going anywhere anyway.

It was virtually impossible to get into the city. There were barriers all over the road. The roads going out of the city were fine, available for people to leave although most had already gone. There were only a sprinkling of cars going out, and no other cars coming in. New Orleans is a ghost town, except for the law enforcement.

On Sunday, CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports he was driving along the Gulf Coast, taking the same road he drove down three years ago, when he saw devastation that looked like a bomb hit the area. This time, there were an estimated 2 million people fleeing to higher ground.

The people of New Orleans and other people of the Gulf Coast are determined, and officials are reminding them, not to make the same mistake twice. National Guard troops outnumber those who chose to stay behind after a mandatory evacuation order. People were warned by the mayor, the governor and other officials that if they got in trouble, there would be no one to help them.

The contrasts are stark between the evacuations for Hurricane Gustav presently and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. This year, it was very organized, while three years ago it was haphazard. Now, there are special buses taking those with no transportation out of the city.

But the images of three years ago are in the back of everyone's mind – the 1,800 people who lost their lives, the squalid conditions at the Superdome and the Convention Center.

But the pictures Sunday night said if the devastating storm hit New Orleans as expected, there would surely have been severe damage. The levees still are not 100 percent.

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