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(AP) - President Bush is skipping the Republican
National Convention on Monday and will travel instead to Texas to
meet with emergency workers and evacuees as Hurricane Gustav bears
down on the Gulf Coast.

      After a briefing Sunday from Federal Emergency Management Agency
officials, Bush urged residents to heed local officials' order to
evacuate.


      "Do not put yourselves in harm's way or make rescue workers
take unnecessary risks," he said. "And know that the American
people stand with you. We'll face this emergency together."

      Bush said he had been assured that New Orleans' levees are
"stronger than they have ever been," but that there is a
"serious risk of significant flooding" across the Gulf Coast,
especially in that city.

      "The message to the people of the Gulf Coast is this storm is
dangerous," he said.

      The White House had announced earlier Sunday that Bush and Vice
President Cheney would skip the convention's opening day. First
lady Laura Bush still was scheduled to address delegates in St.
Paul, Minn., on Monday, the opening day.

      Bush said he would travel instead to Austin, Texas, and San
Antonio to meet with emergency workers and evacuees and check on
preparations. He said that for now he would not go to New Orleans.

"I do not want my visit to impede in any way the response of our
emergency personnel," Bush said. "I hope to be able to get to
Louisiana as soon as conditions permit."

      He said state and federal emergency officials already were
preparing for the worst and that meals, water, cots, blankets and
doctors had been put in ready position.

      The president spoke after his Homeland Security chief warned
that Gustav could prove more challenging than Katrina and the
nation's disaster response coordinator worried about New Orleans'
fragile levees.

      Bush got an update on the storm, which could make landfall along
the Gulf Coast as early as Monday, during a visit to FEMA
headquarters. 

At a briefing, Bush sat next to agency director David
Paulison and watched a live briefing from the National Hurricane
Center's director on a large video screen on Gustav's track and
strength.


      In a telephone call to New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, Bush said he
was "checking in and getting ready to go through this again with
him," spokeswoman Dana Perino said. 


Nagin told Bush the forecast
did not look good, but that he was pleased so far with the
coordination with the federal government.


      Nagin told Bush that residents were heeding the evacuation
notice, roads were full and the elderly were getting the message to
leave, Perino said.

      The White House was working on possible alternatives that would
allow Bush to make a speech at the convention, Perino said. But
Cheney is to leave Tuesday on a four-country trip that includes a
stop in Georgia.


      GOP presidential candidate John McCain, along with his wife,
Cindy, and running mate Sarah Palin intended to travel to Jackson,
Miss., on Sunday at the invitation of Gov. Haley Barbour. They were
to receive a briefing at the Mississippi Emergency Management
Agency.


      Ahead of the storm, Bush pre-emptively declared states of
emergency for Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Alabama. The
declaration clears the way for federal aid to supplement state and
local efforts and formalizes coordination.


      Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Paulison have
visited the region to monitor developments; Chertoff was returning
there Sunday. Chertoff, who planned to remain in Baton Rouge, La.,
for the duration of the storm, said coordination among response
officials was much better than it was during Katrina.


      But he acknowledged some shortcomings so far, including buses
that had yet to arrive at evacuation points and last-minute
decisions by hospitals to move critically ill patients out of the
storm's way.


      With New Orleans' mandatory evacuation getting under way,
internal government briefing documents obtained by The Associated
Press on Sunday said Louisiana was short 750 buses needed for
evacuation. 

Chertoff said school buses were expected to fill in for
the contract buses that had not appeared and that the Canadian
military was lending planes to help evacuate hospital patients.


      "This is probably the case with almost any emergency, which is
as soon as you make contact with the enemy, the plan starts to
suffer some alterations," Chertoff told reporters at Andrews Air
Force base before his departure. 

He said reports that some
Louisiana residents apparently have decided to ride that storm out
in their homes "strikes me as exceptionally foolish."

      Gustav is "going to be, in some ways, more challenging than
Katrina," Chertoff said.


      Paulison, in a broadcast interview, said Gustav "will test
parts of the levee that were not tested during Katrina." 

The Army
Corps of Engineers have made those levees stronger since Katrina
"but there are still a lot of vulnerabilities. This could be a a
much worse storm. Hopefully, it won't be, but the possibilities are
definitely there."

Gallery

Politics and Government News

President Bush will skip the Republican
National Convention on Monday and travel instead to Texas to meet
with emergency workers and people who evacuated the Gulf Coast as
Hurricane Gustav bore down.

Bush: No to convention, plans Gustav trip to Texas

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