Nearly two million people have evacuated their homes in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas as Hurricane Gustav roars toward the Gulf Coast. It is one of the largest evacuations in US history. The storm has already killed nearly 100 people in the Caribbean. Gustav is expected to hit Louisiana, west of New Orleans, sometime this morning. The Category 3 storm has sustained winds of 115 miles per hour. Over the weekend, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin issued a mandatory evacuation order.

Mayor Ray Nagin: “And I must tell you, this is the mother of all storms. This storm is so powerful, and growing more powerful every day, that I am not sure we have seen anything like it. The National Weather Service is saying it’s the worst possible storm that they can imagine, if that gives you some idea of what we’re dealing with.”

In New Orleans, officials are warning that communities on the west side of the Mississippi River are particularly vulnerable to a tidal surge. Nagin said the city would not operate any “shelters of last resort.” A twenty-four-hour curfew went into effect today. Nagin has threatened to send any suspected looters straight to the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola. Hurricane Gustav comes nearly three years to the day to Hurricane Katrina, that killed 1,800 people in Louisiana and Mississippi and caused more than $80 billion in damage.