New Orleans Mayor Urges Evacuation

With Rita Approaching, Officials Say Up To 500 Buses Available

(CBS/AP)  New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco strongly urged people along the Louisiana coast to be prepared to get out, and the federal government's top official in the city, Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen, said the preparations in and around New Orleans included 500 buses for evacuation, and enough water and military meals for 500,000 people.

With Hurricane Rita swirling in the Gulf of Mexico, Nagin said evacuation orders will be announced "based upon the storm's threat."

"We are praying that the hurricane dissipates or that it weakens," Blanco said. "This state can barely stand what happened to it."

Nagin ordered residents who had slipped back into still-closed parts of the city to leave immediately. He also urged everyone already settled back into Algiers, the only neighborhood now open to returning residents, to be ready to evacuate as early as Wednesday.

Engineers are working around the clock to patch up the levees before Hurricane Rita arrives and there are thousands of residents left in New Orleans trying to decide if they should stay or go, CBS News Correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi reports.

In anticipation of another hurricane, the Corps drove a massive metal barrier across the 17th Street Canal bed to prevent a storm surge from Lake Pontchartrain from swamping New Orleans again. Although engineers have left a large opening in the wall to allow floodwater to continue to be pumped back into the lake, it will have to be closed quickly if Rita or another storm threatens.

The recent call to return, then the sudden warnings to evacuate have left New Orleanians confused, Alfonsi adds.

Earlier, President Bush toured the region, and said of Hurricane Rita "what we pray is not a devastating storm" as he flew over miles of flattened homes and mud-caked neighborhoods hit by Hurricane Katrina.

Mr. Bush received a briefing about Rita aboard the USS Iwo Jima, which is docked near downtown New Orleans, as the hurricane lashed the Florida Keys and caused new anxiety among Katrina victims in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama.

In a ship mess hall, the president held a videoconference with three federal officials: Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, the National Hurricane Center's deputy director, Ed Rappaport, and a Federal Emergency Management Agency official.

"He is fully briefed," Coast Guard Vice Admiral Thad Allen said of Mr. Bush.

Nagin told The Early Show's Hannah Storm that despite other federal criticism of the city's lack of complete infrastructure, bracing for Rita motivated him to call for a re-evacuation.

"You know, from my perspective, pressure is dealing with a city that's under sea level and that's facing its second hurricane in three weeks," Nagin said. "So ... the issue is Rita."

Nagin also told Storm (video interview) that he did not think it would be necessary to enforce the renewed evacuation order.

Nagin said two busloads of evacuees left from a staging area at the convention center Tuesday afternoon. He estimated that 400 to 500 residents were left in the city. The city decided to allow people to continue cleanup until dusk Tuesday and will start to re-enforce the evacuation order Wednesday, he said. He did not give specifics on how the order will be enforced.

To people who refuse to leave, Nagin had this message: "We're all adults. We really don't want to take people out by gunpoint. We hope they see the threat ... and obey the law."

The officials said Rita was projected to strengthen to a Category 3 hurricane that would hit the upper to middle part of the Texas coast by the weekend and could create tropical storm conditions or, much less likely, hurricane-force winds in southeastern Louisiana.

"We're watching very closely, of course, its track," Mr. Bush said later at a Folgers coffee plant in Louisiana that recently restarted operations. "All up and down the coastline people are now preparing for what is anticipated to be yet another significant storm."

Eager to show hands-on leadership after being criticized for a slow response to Katrina, Mr. Bush signed an emergency declaration for Florida, spoke with Texas Gov. Rick Perry about planning for the storm's landfall, and said military outfits are being removed from New Orleans to be out of Rita's path and ready to help with recovery.