Hurricane Gustav: New Orleans Empties for Next Storm of the Century

Stripped to his shorts and flexing his arm tattoos, William LeBlanc sat on his front steps and chewed a cigarette in the sticky Louisiana heat. "I've nowhere to go and no way to get there," he said with a loner's defiance. "Go to a shelter and get stabbed and cut and go hungry? I'll take my chances."

LeBlanc was alone in the suffocating quiet of New Orleans' impoverished 9th Ward, where three years ago Hurricane Katrina left bodies floating in the streets. Today, there were no people, no animals, no traffic, no semblance of everyday life; only traffic lights blinking unseen from red to green. This was the stuff of every apocalyptic sci-fi tale about the end of the line.

But LeBlanc, an army veteran, was determined to ignore the mayor's mandatory order to evacuate because Hurricane Gustav, the "storm of the century", was moving closer. "Everything I own is in this house and I ain't giving them up," he said. "I'm a carpenter and I have no way of getting my tools out. If I lose them, I can't make a living. I have to protect them."

Beyond the 53-year-old grandfather's front door lay two bare mattresses and other household clutter. On the outside wall a code had been sprayed in the wake of Katrina warning that contaminated water flooded the house making it unfit for habitation.

"I was in Indiana the day Katrina hit and I got back to devastation. It was sick. I cleaned shit up off the streets for months," said LeBlanc. "And I saw a few dead bodies. It was fucking nasty. It hurt the heart every day."

This time LeBlanc knows he is taking his life in his hands. "I don't want to sleep elbow to elbow with 40,000 people; I like being by myself," he said. "My phone is dead so I can't call for help. I say my prayers every day."

Travelling through the 7th, 8th and 9th wards there was the same sense of a ghost town, with only a few stragglers boarding up windows and packing up to leave.

This time people were not taking any chances. Those too poor to own a car had been given state transport, and a calm procession of white buses could be seen taking them to safety. They joined a stream of outbound traffic, while inbound lanes were virtually dead.

On corners of streets with names such as Piety and Desire there were glimpses of National Guard soldiers and police in uniforms, adding to the sense of a city under siege. A black family with luggage slung over their shoulders could be seen crossing one of the cracked roads on their way to a bus pick-up point.

Eerie quiet

The home of jazz had fallen silent. Even in the main tourist district, the French Quarter, was eerily subdued. Bars, hotels and souvenir shops had locked their doors, some with lights still on or music playing with no one to hear. Although the district is on high ground and escaped flooding last time, a few buildings had panels of wood hammered over the doors. One stood out with bright pink sprayed letters: "Don't even think about it Gustav."

Just off Bourbon Street, St Louis Cathedral was open and candles burned, but there was not a soul to be seen. Most of the activity outside came from US TV journalists, although a few residents still lingered like survivors of an unexplained calamity. Soofia Khan, 23, was out with her one-year-old daughter Keana, in a pushchair. She explained that her husband, a hotel chef, had been obliged to stay for the sake of national security officials. But her daughter could sense the monster storm drawing near. "She's really fussy today. She knows there's something changing. Of course I'm worried but I feel safe because the hotel has taken a lot of precautions," Khan said.

Mike Rohm and his wife, Victoria, were on their way home from a European cruise, but memories of the London Eye, Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London were soon eclipsed. "Thirty hours ago we were in Dover," said Rohm, 60, an investment manager. "We call this, 'from good times to Gustav'. We were in St Petersburg when we first heard. It was very reminiscent of three years ago and what happened with Katrina. We kept our eyes on it and it became clear it's coming close to home. Now we pray."

Rohm had a handwritten list tucked into the top pocket of his red T-shirt. On it were all the valuables he intended to pack into two cars before "battening down the hatches and driving away". They included medicines, home videos, jewellery, wedding photos and, in case of a power cut, a portable radio.

But not everyone was willing to evacuate. Victoria, 57, said: "We have friends who are not leaving. They have five cats and they choose to stay. I think they're foolish because you don't know what the storm's going to do, but that's their decision. Our greatest fear, after Katrina, is can the city recover from another one? There are still areas today which don't look very different from the way they did after Katrina. The population is only two-thirds of what it was."

James and Carol Friedman were hoping that, from New Orleans airport, they could find roads that were still open leading to their homee, where they intended to pack up then head to their daughter's home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. "We thought we were going to be put in straitjackets just for getting on this flight," said Carol, 56. We were both born and raised in New Orleans. The thought of it toppling and going under this time is as worrying as what happens to our personal property."

Safety fears

James Friedman, 57, an accountant, added: "People who decide to stay in New Orleans are in the insane category. It's mad, loony, you don't know what's going to happen. It isn't safe. You can have all the supplies in the world but maybe no electricity or gasoline for a long time.

"I don't know what to imagine after last time, but I think the government has better plans to keep people safe. This time there are no shelters in the city, so we shouldn't see another CNN Superdome siege. Anyone who stays back has no one to blame but themselves."

Carol added: "I remember seeing two people meet in Wal-Mart for the first time since Katrina and how emotional they were. Everything is 'before Katrina' or 'after Katrina'. New Orleans was always 'the city that care forgot' - we were happy go lucky and didn't spend time worrying. That went to the wayside with Katrina because terrible things happened. There wasn't that comfortable feeling any more that everything will be all right."

Katrina also exposed a brutal truth about racial division and endemic poverty in the American south. A middle-class black couple, John O'Neal and his wife, Bertha, had the roof of their house ripped off by the storm three years ago. Today they were heading home to grab John's medicine before driving to Atlanta.

O'Neal, 68, a theatre manager, said: "Anyone who stays behind is brave. Some will have no means to leave and won't have been identified by the authorities. Other will be obliged to stay like Red Cross workers, and some just don't want to go. I think it's a lie about there being no shelters - it's a strategy to discourage people."

Bertha, 60, a retired teacher, added: "After everything people suffered last time, anyone who doesn't leave now? That's crazy."