Katrina Makes Landfall

Comes Ashore Just East Of Grand Isle, Louisiana

(CBS/AP)  Conceding that as many as 100,000 inner-city residents didn't have the means to leave and an untold number of tourists were stranded by the closing of the airport, the city arranged buses to take people to 10 last-resort shelters, including the Superdome.

President Bush, as he readied the federal government for a massive relief effort, on Sunday urged people in the path of Hurricane Katrina to forget anything but their safety and move to higher ground as instructed.

New Orleans hasn't been this concerned about a storm since Hurricane Betsy blasted the Gulf Coast in 1965. Flooding approached 20 feet deep in some areas, fishing villages were flattened, and the storm surge left almost half of New Orleans under water and 60,000 residents homeless. Seventy-four people died in Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida.

For years, forecasters have warned of the nightmare scenario a big storm could bring to New Orleans (video), a bowl of a city that's up to 10 feet below sea level in spots and dependent on a network of levees, canals and pumps to keep dry. It's built between the half-mile-wide Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, half the size of the state of Rhode Island.

Estimates have been made of flooding that could overrun levees with the potential to turn many neighborhoods in New Orleans into a 30-foot-deep toxic lake filled with chemicals and petroleum from refineries, and waste from ruined septic systems.

Despite the dire predictions, a group of residents in a poor neighborhood of central New Orleans sat on a porch with no car, no way out and, surprisingly, no fear.

"We're not evacuating," said 57-year-old Julie Paul. "None of us have any place to go. We're counting on the Superdome. That's our lifesaver."

The Superdome, the 70,000-seat home of football's Saints and the New Year's Sugar Bowl, opened at daybreak Sunday, giving first priority to frail, elderly people on walkers, some with oxygen tanks. They were told to bring enough food, water and medicine to last up to five days.

In the French Quarter, most bars that stayed open through the threat of past hurricanes were boarded up and the few people on the streets were battening down their businesses and getting out.

Sasha Gayer tried to get a train out of town but couldn't. So she walked back to the French Quarter, buying supplies on the way, and then stopped at one of the few bars open on Bourbon Street.

"This is a lot more fun than sitting at home listening to apocalyptic media reports," she said. "This is how you know it's a serious hurricane. You can't find a slice of white bread in the city, but you can still buy beer."

Katrina is "unmitigated bad news" for motorists across the nation because it shut down offshore production of at least 1 million barrels of oil daily and threatened refinery and import operations around New Orleans.