A county judge said he is planning on issuing a mandatory evacuation of nursing homes and assisted-living facilities beginning at 6:00 am (9:00 GMT) Wednesday, with a mandatory evacuation of the general population beginning at 6:00 pm (2100 GMT) and continuing through Thursday afternoon.

Local schools have already closed and government offices will be closed Wednesday amid fears the hurricane could strike the region.

Hurricane Rita pounded the fragile Florida Keys islands Tuesday as it barreled toward the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico.

Those wishing to enter the county to check on their boats or summer houses were warned to do so no later than noon on Wednesday as all traffic will be directed northbound after mandatory evacuation begins.

Shelters have been set up in three nearby towns and pets will be allowed in the shelters, officials said. Many Louisiana residents were deterred from staying in a shelter during the deadly Hurricane Katrina because they did not want to abandon their pets.

Located just south of Houston, the county of Galveston is home to some 267,000 people.

New Orleans residents flee again amid new hurricane threat
New Orleans, Louisiana, Sept 20 (AFP) - Storm-weary New Orleans residents began fleeing their devastated city again Tuesday as Hurricane Rita threatened the Gulf Coast three weeks after Katrina's deadly passage through Louisiana.

Rita's threat forced Mayor Ray Nagin to suspend his plan to gradually repopulate the city this week as he urged residents who have come back to pack up and leave again.

The new exodus came as President George W. Bush toured the Gulf of Mexico region ravaged by Katrina on August 29 for the fifth time.

Nagin said residents were gathering at the convention center to take buses out of the city. "We have had an influx of evacuees that have made their way to the convention center. We've already evacuated two busloads of individuals," Nagin told a news conference here alongside Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco.

Blanco said she had declared a state of emergency for southwest Louisiana and urged people to flee.

A decision on mandatory evacuations will be made Wednesday as officials, who came under fire for their slow response to Katrina, monitor the new hurricane's track.

"If the storm becomes a threat, we will start to strictly enforce the evacuation process tomorrow," Nagin said.

Still, some diehard residents living in districts that were not flooded by Katrina continued to defy calls to leave the city.

"I am not leaving. I've fed the police and the military, I cooked 800 steaks for them," said Finis Shelnutt, who lives in the French Quarter, which once buzzed with music and tourists but is now filled with patrolling troops.

"I didn't know they had anybody to evacuate! I am not leaving. Those buildings are built like fortresses," said Shelnutt, dubbed the "mayor of the French Quarter" by fellow business owners.

Bush, meanwhile, visited Gulfport, Mississippi before heading to New Orleans and promised to help the states crushed by Katrina to rebuild.

"There's no doubt in my mind that out of the rubble ... a better Mississippi will emerge," Bush said in Gulfport.

Packing winds of 160 kilometers per hour (100 mph), Hurricane Rita pounded the fragile Florida Keys islands Tuesday as it barreled toward the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico on a track that could take it close to devastated New Orleans.

On August 29, Hurricane Katrina, rated four on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale, on which five is the most violent, lay waste to the coastlines of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, inflicting the costliest natural disaster in US history.

Nearly 1,000 bodies have been found so far and the death toll is expected to rise further.

In New Orleans, plans to swiftly repopulate the city lay in tatters after experts warned that even a distant miss by Rita could dump heavy rainfall on the area, possibly overwhelming a levee system that remains weakened by Katrina.

Just four days after calling on nearly 200,000 citizens to start returning to least-affected neighborhoods to breathe life back into the empty city, Nagin made a humiliating U-turn on Monday, suspending the resettlement and telling people to leave.

"I know there are lots of people ... anxious about coming home. And I know that some of you were prepared to come back to New Orleans. Just hold on for a little longer," he said Tuesday.

With shelters already packed with Hurricane Katrina evacuees, Louisiana officials urged people to make arrangements to stay with friends or family if they need shelter.

Officials are looking for additional shelter space in case Rita forces more evacuations, said Lieutenant Colonel Bill Doran, chief of operations for the state's homeland security and emergency preparedness office.

"We're encouraging citizens to plan ahead, make provisions with friends and relatives out of the area as the evacuation shelter space may be at a premium," Doran told reporters in the Louisana capital Baton Rouge.

Hundreds of thousands of people remained displaced by Katrina, whose economic cost has been put tentatively at 200 billion dollars.

Agricultural losses alone are estimated to reach 900 million dollars, said Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns.

The hurricane hit a range of farm production in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, including cotton, sugarcane and dairy products. About 10,000 cattle and millions of chickens died.

The authorities at almost every level have been widely criticised for fumbling their response to Katrina, but the disaster unleashed an outpouring of help from the American public.

A White House spokesman said Tuesday that Bush had picked a domestic policy adviser, Fran Townsend, to lead an investigation of the federal government's response to Katrina. Trent Duffy said Townsend "will look at what went right and what went wrong" in the government response.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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