New Orleans to be Evacuated as Katrina’s Winds Near

Authorities in New Orleans ordered hundreds of thousands of residents to flee on Sunday as Hurricane Katrina strengthened into a rare top-ranked storm and barreled toward the vulnerable U.S. Gulf Coast city.

Mayor Ray Nagin warned that the dangerous hurricane’s storm surge of up to 28 feet could topple the low-lying city’s levees and flood its historic French Quarter when it makes a second, and potentially more deadly, assault on U.S. shores. It killed seven people in Florida.
Reuters