Is New Orleans Ready for Another Storm?

The city of New Orleans is inundated with water on Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005. Flood waters continue to rise in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina did extensive damage when it made landfall on Monday. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

Updated 4 p.m. ET Saturday, Aug. 30

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — With a new storm threatening to cause chaos in New Orleans all over again, a horse-drawn carriage brought the last seven unclaimed bodies of Hurricane Katrina victims for entombment at a memorial site on Friday during ceremonies marking the disaster's third anniversary.

The ceremonies were tinged with a recognition of how much the city has rebuilt since Katrina's floods, as well as fear that another disaster could be looming.

"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.

Hurricane Gustav grew to Category 4 status today with sustained winds near 145 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center. The center of the storm was about 155 miles east of the western tip of Cuba Saturday morning. It is expected to strike Cuba today or tonight. It has been blamed for at least 67 deaths already.Forecasters said it could hit the Louisiana coast early next week as a major hurricane and city and state officials were preparing for possible weekend evacuations — the first in the state since Katrina hit in 2005.

About 200 people attended the ceremony. Many rang hand-held bells at 9:38 a.m., the time that levee breaches that inundated the city are believed to have begun.

"I think God is reminding us that on the eve of Katrina, God can bring nature back," said Russell Honore, the retired Army General who headed up rescue efforts three years ago.

Preparations for Gustav forced cancellation of other Katrina memorials Friday, including a jazz funeral that was to have been part of the memorial service. Instead, a lone trumpeter played "Amazing Grace."

In coastal Mississippi, also devastated by Katrina, a morning memorial was held in the town of Waveland, but in neighboring Bay St. Louis, officials chose not to mark the anniversary.

"We decided not to look backward. We decided to look forward with all the progress we've made," said Harold "Buz" Olsen, director of administration for Bay St. Louis.

As Gustav churned, the National Guard was scheduled to begin convoying into New Orleans, while some nursing homes and hospitals planned to start moving patients further inland and the state began moving 9,000 inmates from coastal lockups.

An evacuation order for New Orleans was likely, Nagin said. By Saturday morning, many residents were streaming out of the city and at least one parish had called for a mandatory evacuation.

Federal, state and local officials expressed confidence that plans put in place since Katrina would protect residents.

"What you're going to see is the product of three years of planning, training and exercising at all levels of government, starting with the local and the state level and leading up to the federal level," U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Friday from New Orleans. "So we're clearly better prepared."

New Orleans said it is prepared to move 30,000 residents in an evacuation; estimates put the city's current population between 310,000 to 340,000 people. There were about 454,000 here before Katrina hit. Unlike Katrina, there will be no massive shelter at the Superdome, in fact, no shelter at all was planned for the city. It was unclear what would happen to those left behind.

The first 150 of 700 buses to move residents inland arrived at a staging area near New Orleans on Thursday. Mississippi and Texas officials also were eyeing the storm and weighing their options. On Mississippi's coast, officials were particularly concerned about Katrina-battered families still living in temporary trailers, which are particularly vulnerable to high wind.

Forecasters reiterated that storm projections days ahead of a storm are extremely tenuous. National Hurricane Center specialist Richard Knabb cautioned that the track forecast is still uncertain and the final landfall is possible throughout the northern Gulf Coast.

But forecasters said for the first time that there's a better than ever chance that New Orleans will feel at least tropical storm-force winds. There was much less confidence in whether the city would get hit by hurricane-force winds.

Melissa Clark, who lives in neighboring Jefferson Parish, said she's leaving Friday with her family to stay with friends in Clinton, Miss. — evacuation order or not. Her husband, who works in maintenance at a nearby hospital, will stay behind.

"I'm not taking any chances this time," the 35-year-old mother of three teenagers said as she waited fifth in line at a Wal-Mart gas station Thursday.

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