Hurricane Gustav is expected to hit today with 115 MPH winds Cat 3.
15% of us Oil refineries are located in that area and has closed down since Sunday. At this time 1.9 million have left. Main roads leading into New Orleans have been closed allowing all lanes for exiting. Opening all lanes up for the evacuation is something that was learned from the great Jacksonville exodus that happened around 8 years ago. At that time Jacksonville was on record as the largest Exodus of the time. New Orleans has now surpassed it. By the way the Jacksonville Exodus ended up being pretty much a false alarm.
I hope the Gustav exodus is but at this time it doesn't look good for New Orleans and the other coastal cities in that vicinity.