Powerful Lili stirs action - Evacuations, preparations begin in Texas, Louisiana

NEW ORLEANS - On a sunny but fiercely humid day, it was a 37-year-old memory that spurred scores of residents to take extra precautions as Hurricane Lili approached Louisiana.

Many feared a grim repeat of the disaster wrought by Hurricane Betsy in 1965 - 81 people killed in the state, New Orleans under 8 feet of water. Betsy was a Category 3 hurricane - winds of 111-130 mph. Lili was already a Category 4 late Wednesday with winds of 145 mph and was expected to make landfall Thursday morning in south-central Louisiana.

But New Orleans could still be in for hurricane-force winds and torrential rains.

"If high tides crest over our levee system, my whole house will be under water," said Tilghman Chachere, who lives in Kenner, near the New Orleans airport.

So Mr. Chachere, 52, a carpenter and lifelong resident of the city, vowed to leave, if only because he remembers Betsy, which ravaged New Orleans when he was 15.

Nearly a half-million people in Louisiana and Texas were being urged Wednesday to get out of Lili's way. Resort towns boarded up, along with NASA's Mission Control in Houston and the nation's biggest oil import terminal in Port Fourchon, La. The shutdown of Mission Control will delay for nearly a week Wednesday's shuttle launch 900 miles away in Florida.

In Texas, Gov. Rick Perry signed a disaster declaration to help accelerate the state's response to possible flooding and damage. Although south-central or southwest Louisiana was expected to take the brunt of the storm, Orange and Jefferson counties in Texas would be pummeled by hurricane-force winds and torrential rains, officials said.

The worst of the storm was expected to strike between Lafayette and Morgan City. But on Wednesday, residents and tourists alike feared the worst in the storied city of New Orleans, much of which is below sea level and particularly vulnerable to flooding.

"Everybody's pulling out," said Kelly Garten, 24, from Baltimore, Md., who came here for a health insurance convention. She braced herself for the possibility of being stranded indefinitely.

Sitting beside her in a French Quarter restaurant was Anna Wiltes, 53, who lives in Baltimore but grew up in New Orleans, where she learned long ago that when a hurricane blows in as fast and furious as Lili, "all you can do is pray."

Roger Smith, 61, lives in New Orleans, tending mules for a company that conducts carriage tours of the French Quarter.

"We aren't looking forward to it," Mr. Smith said of Lili, "but we might as well enjoy it, because we're not going anywhere."

Others, however, couldn't wait to flee. With schools and businesses by the hundreds closing early, residents and tourists alike were torn between getting out of town as quickly as possible or "battening down the hatches" and waiting Lili out. Newscasts on Wednesday were warning of possible massive power outages and tornadoes spinning off from the hurricane.

For Xerox employee Jeannine Rossignol, 31, the hurricane's timing could not have been worse. Ms. Rossignol, who lives in Rochester, N.Y., was in New Orleans attending the health insurance convention at the Marriott Hotel on Canal Street - and facing the possibility of being stranded indefinitely.

"I have a wedding this weekend," she said with a sigh. "A close friend of mine is getting married. And I'm not really afraid of the storm as much as I am being stranded here. But we rented a van big enough to fit everyone we brought here from Xerox, so if worse comes to worse, we're just gonna get in and go."

City officials opened three shelters Wednesday night and said that residents who planned to go there to ride out the storm should bring food and other supplies. The Superdome, which is often opened by the city as a special-needs shelter, was not opened Wednesday night, and officials said they had made provisions for special-needs patients to go to area hospitals.

They also announced that most of the more than 100 floodgates in the levees that surround New Orleans were being closed and urged that residents of some low-lying neighborhoods evacuate.

Memories of Betsy had shop and restaurant owners stirring with activity all day Wednesday. Many were stacking sandbags in front of doors, covering windows with plywood and bracing shutters with 1-by-4 planks. No one was working harder than Dave Brinks, 35.

A published poet, the bearded Mr. Brinks manages the Gold Mine Saloon, which his father, Gene Evanoff, 60, has owned for more than 30 years.

Since boyhood, Mr. Brinks has heard horror stories about Betsy, which reduced to rubble the New Orleans-style balcony that hung over the family saloon. It's never been rebuilt.

"Betsy just ripped it right off," said Mr. Brinks, who noted that New Orleans' elevation - or lack of it - makes the likes of Betsy and Lili more horrifying than they might be otherwise.

"If you look down the street, it's a very humbling experience on a good day," he said. "Because, as you look toward the levee and the river, the ships going across are higher than you are. They move above you."

The perceived tendency of a hurricane to drop the largest amounts of rain and to lavish the fiercest winds on its northeast quadrant - where New Orleans would be if Lili makes landfall in south-central Louisiana - made things even worse.

And if the hurricane stalls, "Well, that would be horrible," Mr. Brinks said. "The wind, the rain and all the elements from the storm would bear down on us for an extended period of time."

Samuel James, 60, an airport shuttle driver, has lived in New Orleans all his life. By Wednesday afternoon, he was planning to evacuate, driving as fast as he could north or east. His worst fear?

"Water, water, water," he said, noting that a childhood friend of his drowned during Betsy.

"You bet, I'm headin' out tonight, but I've made some calls, and I've already found that hotels for miles and miles around here are booked solid. That's OK," said Mr. James, who spent most of Wednesday driving very large parties to the airport - hotel guests and even a few residents making an early exit.

"I'll keep drivin' until I find a safe place to lay my body down," said Mr. James. "I ain't about to stay here.

Free-lance writer Glynn Wilson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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WTNT23 KNHC 030841

TCMAT3

HURRICANE LILI FORECAST/ADVISORY NUMBER 48

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MIAMI FL AL1302

0900Z THU OCT 03 2002

AT 4 AM CDT...0900Z...THE TROPICAL STORM WARNING FROM FREEPORT TEXAS TO HIGH ISLAND TEXAS IS DISCONTINUED.

A HURRICANE WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM EAST OF HIGH ISLAND TEXAS TO THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER.

A TROPICAL STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM EAST OF THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER TO THE ALABAMA/FLORIDA BORDER...INCLUDING NEW ORLEANS AND LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN.

HURRICANE CENTER LOCATED NEAR 28.7N 91.7W AT 03/0900Z POSITION ACCURATE WITHIN 20 NM

PRESENT MOVEMENT TOWARD THE NORTH-NORTHWEST OR 335 DEGREES AT 15 KT

ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE 957 MB

MAX SUSTAINED WINDS 105 KT WITH GUSTS TO 130 KT.

64 KT....... 50NE 40SE 20SW 20NW.

50 KT....... 90NE 90SE 40SW 80NW.

34 KT.......170NE 160SE 100SW 140NW. WINDS AND SEAS VARY GREATLY IN EACH QUADRANT. RADII IN NAUTICAL MILES ARE THE LARGEST RADII EXPECTED ANYWHERE IN THAT QUADRANT.

REPEAT...CENTER LOCATED NEAR 28.7N 91.7W AT 03/0900Z AT 03/0600Z CENTER WAS LOCATED NEAR 28.1N 91.4W

FORECAST VALID 03/1800Z 30.7N 92.1W...INLAND

MAX WIND 85 KT...GUSTS 105 KT.

64 KT... 40NE 40SE 20SW 20NW.

50 KT... 75NE 90SE 40SW 75NW.

34 KT...150NE 160SE 100SW 120NW.

FORECAST VALID 04/0600Z 33.4N 91.0W...INLAND

MAX WIND 50 KT...GUSTS 60 KT.

50 KT... 50NE 50SE 30SW 30NW.

34 KT... 75NE 75SE 50SW 50NW.

FORECAST VALID 04/1800Z 37.5N 87.5W...INLAND

MAX WIND 25 KT...GUSTS 35 KT.

REQUEST FOR 3 HOURLY SHIP REPORTS WITHIN 300 MILES OF 28.7N 91.7W

EXTENDED OUTLOOK...USE FOR GUIDANCE ONLY...ERRORS MAY BE LARGE

FORECAST VALID 05/0600Z...INLAND

FORECAST VALID 06/0600Z...INLAND

NEXT ADVISORY AT 03/1500Z

FORECASTER PASCH

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