A slightly weakened Gustav -- still a dangerous Category 3 storm with winds near 125 miles (205 kilometers) per hour -- battered Cuba Sunday after claiming at least 81 lives in its tear across the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica.

New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, desperate to avoid a replay of the 2005 Katrina catastrophe, ordered the city emptied on Sunday in the face of what he called "the storm of the century" and roads quickly filled with fleeing residents.

"Get out of town," Jefferson parish president Aaron Broussard said in a public announcement Sunday morning. "Have the courage to disconnect yourself from your material things. You cannot protect yourself against what Mother Nature is going to send us."

Jefferson Parish includes the West Bank, where a "storm surge" of water pushed ashore by hurricane winds is expected to easily wash over levees guarding that area.

Weather models indicate a surge could be more than 20 feet (almost three meters) high, double the height of levees on the West Bank.

"We are going to see storm surge on the West Bank like we have never seen before," said Jefferson parish councilman Chris Roberts. "Now is the time to sound the alarm."

In Cuba, Gustav tore off roofs, flattened buildings and plunged communities into darkness as it smashed through the Isle of Youth, then tore across mainland Cuba southwest of Havana, which has a population of more than two million. There were no immediate reported deaths in Cuba.

The monster storm lost some of its punch in the process, with US officials downgrading it from four to three.

At 1200 GMT, the US National Hurricane Center said Gustav's eye was about 375 miles (605 km) southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River, as the storm moved northwest about 16 mph (26 km/h) and was expected to strengthen a bit.

"On this track Gustav will be moving across the central Gulf of Mexico today (Sunday) and make landfall on the northern Gulf coast on Monday," the NHC added, warning "an extremely dangerous storm surge of 18 to 25 feet (more than six meters) above normal tidal levels is expected near and to the east of where the center of Gustav crosses the northern Gulf Coast."

President George W. Bush is unlikely to travel to the Republican Convention Monday as Hurricane Gustav closes in on the US Gulf Coast, the White House said in Washington. The Katrina catastrophe was a major political siaster for his administration.

Republican White House hopeful John McCain and his running-mate Sarah Palin also said they would suspend their normal election campaign and visit to Mississippi to inspect preparations for Gustav's arrival.

Major oil producers BP, ConocoPhillips and Shell on Thursday evacuated workers from their facilities in the Gulf where nearly a quarter of US crude oil installations are located.

Cuban national television reported that the scene on the Isle of Youth was one of devastation after the monster storm ground its way across the low-lying island of fishing villages, factories and citrus farms.

"The situation is very difficult," acknowledged Ana Delgado, president of the Municipal Defense Council there. "The damage is widespread."

Homes were under water, warehouses toppled, and roads washed away on the Isle, state television said, adding there were some injuries though no immediate reports of deaths.

More than 250,000 were evacuated from western parts of mainland Cuba before the storm hit near the town of Carraguao, 100 kilometers (62 miles) southwest of Havana, then crossed into the Gulf of Mexico, the Cuban weather service said.

Used to fairly frequent smaller tropical storms, Havana residents ran around town Saturday gathering candles and food, boiling water and taping up windows. But the steady flow of updates on state television alarmed many.

"Really, I just did not expect this -- it has been a long time since we have been hit by such a powerful hurricane, and this Gustav looks like it will be quite strong," retired actress Gliseria Farinas said in Havana.

A key concern was for the crowded and charming colonial-era Old Havana, which UNESCO declared a World Heritage Site in 1982. Its fragile, centuries-old buildings are prone to cave-ins after heavy rains, though most of Cuba's housing stock is old and fragile.

Cuban authorities have said that in Havana alone there are 1,000 buildings in "critical condition". These include about 8,000 structures housing some 26,000 people, many of them in Old Havana.

Earlier Gustav's path of destruction left 66 dead and 10 missing in Haiti. In neighboring Dominican Republic, the death toll stood at eight, while in Jamaica the toll stood at seven, with many thousands displaced.

 

Gustav hurricane