Tens of thousands of people in New Orleans and the US Gulf Coast fled their homes tonight as Hurricane Gustav moved within 24 hours of striking land.
The oil industry from Texas to New Orleans was taking no chances either, shutting down nearly all offshore platforms and many refineries as Gustav threatened the region that pumps a quarter of the US oil supply.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ordered mandatory evacuation of the city of 239,000 and told residents "this is still a big, ugly storm, still strong and I encourage everyone to leave."
The storm evoked memories of Katrina which struck almost exactly three years ago, flooding 80 per cent of the city, killing 1,500 people in five states and costing $80 billion.
Mayor Nagin warned anyone who defied evacuation orders they would face extreme danger. Travel trailers that had housed some of those displaced by Katrina might "become projectiles" in the hurricane-force winds. He laid down a dusk-to-dawn curfew and told looters they would be sent straight to prison.
Gustav also took centre stage in US politics two months ahead of the hotly contested presidential election.
President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, accused of a slow and botched response to Katrina's chaos, said they would not attend this week's Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. Bush will travel to Texas on Monday to oversee emergency efforts.
Republican presidential nominee John McCain headed to the Gulf to survey preparations and Republicans considered shortening the event.
By most accounts, evacuations from New Orleans and other coastal cities were proceeding smoothly although traffic was moving slowly on clogged highways. More than 11.5 million residents in five states could feel the impact of the storm.
The US Coast Guard reported the first storm-related death in Florida, where a man fell overboard as his ship ran into heavy waves.
If, as currently predicted, Gustav lands west of New Orleans tomorrow as a Category 4 hurricane with wind speeds up to 155 mph (249 kph), its 16-foot (5-metre) storm surge could break through the same levees that failed three year ago.
Federal officials say the levees protecting New Orleans are stronger now but still have gaps.
New Orleans resident Vanessa Jones (50) said she had planned to stay but changed her mind after watching the news all night.
"I can't take a chance because so many people died in Katrina," Jones said as she prepared to board a bus headed to an unknown destination.
Katrina was a Category 3 when its 28-foot (8.5 metre) storm surge burst levees on August 29th, 2005. New Orleans degenerated into chaos as stranded storm victims waited days for government rescue and law and order collapsed.
Thousands of people, still carrying emotional scars from Katrina, jammed highways out of New Orleans. The government lined up trains and hundreds of buses to evacuate 30,000 people who could not leave on their own and Nagin said 15,000 had been removed from the city, including hundreds in wheelchairs.
Residents boarded up the windows of their shops and homes before leaving town, while others hunkered down as "hold-outs" with stockpiled food, water and shotguns to ward off looters.
"I saw quite a bit of looting last time with Katrina, even 30 minutes after the winds had stopped," said construction contractor Norwood Thornton, who opted to stay behind to protect his home in New Orleans' historic Garden District.
Gustav weakened to a still dangerous Category 3 storm after it passed over Cuba. It killed at least 86 people in the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica.
But the latest warnings from the National Hurricane Center brought some relief with signs that the storm was weakening slightly and sucking up less power over the warm Gulf water that made Katrina an explosive Category 5 as it moved north.
Katrina and Hurricane Rita, which followed it three weeks later, wrecked more than 100 Gulf oil platforms, but Gustav could deal a harsher blow.
In a special trading session to accommodate the Labor Day holiday tomorrow and the storm's impact, US crude oil features rose nearly $3 to over $118 per barrel.
"It remains likely that Gustav will prove to become a worst case scenario for the producing region and places the heart of the oil production region under a high risk of sustaining significant or major damage," said Planalytics analyst Jim Roullier.
As Gustav swirled through the Gulf, forecasters also kept an eye on Tropical Storm Hanna, in the Atlantic Ocean about 145 miles (230 km) north-northeast of Grand Turk Island.
It was moving west-northwest with top sustained winds of 50 mph (85 kph) and could strengthen during the next couple of days, the hurricane center said. The storm might eventually threaten Florida but its path was constantly changing.
Reuters