New Orleans Braces for Georges

Under a flat gray sky that threatened but hadn’t yet dealt heavy rains, New Orleans residents sealed windows, packed shelters, even pried their way into abandoned buildings Sunday to evade the onrushing force of Hurricane Georges.

The massive storm, expected to slam the Gulf Coast tonight, could hover over New Orleans for days and pour up to 25 inches of rain onto the city and its surroundings, forecasters said. For an area that averages 6 feet below sea level and is ringed by swamps, lakes and the Mississippi River, flooding could be disastrous, officials warned.

“We’re the best city in America,” Mayor Marc Morial said, “but this may not have been the best place 300 years ago to place a city.”

Officials have urged or required more than 1.5 million people to evacuate the city and surroundings. Major highways, including Interstate 10, were shut down Sunday afternoon; flights into and out of New Orleans were canceled. A 6 p.m. curfew was in effect.

By Sunday evening, only light showers had spattered the city, but driving rains and 40-mph winds were recorded along Pensacola Beach in Florida and into Alabama. Since heading into the Gulf of Mexico from the Florida Keys, where Georges caused serious damage, winds increased to 105 mph, just below the threshold of major hurricane status.

Yet wind is not considered the greatest threat to New Orleans. The city is protected from flooding by a system of pumps that could be overwhelmed by a combination of rain and intruding sea water driven by high winds, officials said.

On Sunday, tens of thousands of residents flocked into nine city shelters, and officials announced that the New Orleans International Airport would open to residents as well.

At one shelter, the Superdome, as many as 10,000 people had staked their turf on floor after floor of corridor by Sunday afternoon.

Kim Nguyen, a Vietnamese immigrant, sat surrounded by her four children, husband and parents on flowered coverlets. With coolers full of potato chips and luncheon meats, Nguyen said she and her family were ready to wait out the storm three days if necessary.

On the first floor of the dome, 89-year-old Lily Marshall watched the stream of families climb the halted escalators with sleeping bags and plastic sacks. Beside Marshall lay a small shopping bag with everything she had brought from her house in the Uptown neighborhood.

“Oh, no, I don’t plan to sleep,” she said quietly. “If I was home, I probably would not sleep. I’m going to rest right here. I came because I’m protected. But I feel just like anyone would. I’m scared.”

Not everyone sought shelter outside their homes, however.

In the French Quarter, the highest ground in the city, 70-year-old Vernon McCall hammered boards on his window and muttered aloud that this was the first time he had seen his wife scared.

“I’ve been here for 25 years, and I’ve never seen her like this,” McCall said. “I’m usually the one who’s afraid of everything. I’m staying home with her and a big rope [to lash the couple together]. If we go, we go together.”

At the Bridge Halfway House for substance abusers, meanwhile, only about 20 of the normal 90 occupants had lingered. Located on low ground, the building was expected to flood, said a resident who called himself Jody. While the occupants had received permission to go home to their families, a few chose to stay.

“I stayed for the help,” said Joseph Jones, 32. “The help that I get here.”

At the recently closed Florida housing project across town, several apartments once again bustled. Doors in the battered, boarded-up project had been pried open by several families who had left more vulnerable areas.

Janice Hodges, 34, occupied an empty first-floor apartment with about 20 family members. Her relatives used to live here and decided Sunday to make it their shelter. Holding a flask of blue cleaning liquid and a washcloth, Hodges said she had no complaints about the city’s extensive efforts to give shelter.

“They did everything they could,” added her sister, a school board employee who called herself only Sheila. “But shelters are too cramped. I wouldn’t want to live here. But we are comfortable. We’ve got two cell phones, we’ve got water, TV and a VCR.

“Now, we just pray to the Lord,” Sheila added. “We are cleaning out the third floor in case the water rises. But this is real safe.”

Sunday night, waves leaped across beachfront roads along U.S. 90 in Mississippi, and thousands crowded into almost 250 shelters along the state’s coast. Georges’ 25-foot waves clipped off fishing piers along Alabama’s coast, where there were reports of waves smashing over concrete walls to demolish a fishing pier.

More than 300 deaths had been blamed on the hurricane in the Caribbean.

By 9 p.m. PDT, the hurricane’s center was 105 miles east-southeast of New Orleans. Winds blew about 105 mph, and forecasters said that might increase to 120 mph. Georges was moving north-northwest at 6 mph.

Georges is the most serious storm to threaten New Orleans since 1969, when Camille slammed into the coast of Mississippi and Louisiana, causing flooding as far north as Virginia and West Virginia and killing 259 people.

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Times wire services contributed to this story.