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NEW ORLEANS - Authorities began busing people out of areas of New Orleans on Friday ahead of the possible landfall of Tropical Storm Gustav, forecast to hit the region as a powerful hurricane early Tuesday.
Officials in Saint Charles parish, in western New Orleans, have been busing out residents who want to leave the city.
While the Friday evacuations are voluntary, authorities in Saint Charles and the five other New Orleans parishes are planning mandatory evacuations starting noon Saturday if Gustav remains on the same path.
Parish officials "are extremely concerned about storm surge flooding" that Gustav would cause, noting that "the entire parish remains at risk.
"All residents should be taking steps to secure their homes and prepare for evacuation NOW," read a statement from the office of Parish President V.J. St. Pierre.
The evacuations come exactly three years after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the city. Katrina killed some 1,800 people in the Gulf region, the bulk of them in New Orleans.
President George W. Bush on Friday declared a state of emergency in Louisiana, freeing up aid from Washington.
At least 78 people have been killed over the past days as Tropical Storm Gustav lashed the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica.
On its current path Gustav is forecast to make landfall early Tuesday just west of New Orleans, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said.
There is "a very distinct possibility" that it will strike the area as a powerful Category Three hurricane, Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Feltgen told AFP.
- AFP /ls
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