Good Job Mayor Nagin!

I bashed him hard three years ago so it is only fair that I praise him just as hard now.

From the AP through Yahoo News: "New Orleans evacuates as massive Gustav bears down":

In New Orleans, Nagin used stark language to urge residents to get out of the city, calling Gustav the "the mother of all storms."

"This is the real deal, not a test," Nagin said as he issued the evacuation order Saturday night. "For everyone thinking they can ride this storm out, I have news for you: that will be one of the biggest mistakes you can make in your life."

The mandatory evacuation of New Orleans is the first test of a revamped evacuation plan designed to eliminate the chaos, looting and death that followed Katrina.

Residents of suburban Jefferson Parish, swollen by residents who did not return to New Orleans after Katrina, were also ordered to leave in the first-ever mandatory evacuation of the entire parish.

The city will not offer emergency services to those who choose stay behind, Nagin said, and there will be no "last resort" shelter as there was during Katrina, when thousands suffered inside a squalid Superdome.

For residents with no other means of leaving the city, the last buses were going to leave at 3 p.m. Sunday.

Lines for the evacuation buses queuing up at the city's main transit center were much shorter Sunday than they'd been a day earlier.

To stop the looting that arose after Katrina:

Mayor Ray Nagin instituted a dusk-to-dawn curfew to take effect at sunset and continue until the storm has passed. The curfew allows officials to arrest residents if they are not on their own property.

"Looting will not be tolerated," Nagin said. "Looters will go directly to jail. You will not get a pass this time."

This time there are thousands of buses along with trains shuttling folks out of New Orleans, and efforts to move through the neighborhoods to find those who cannot get to the evacuation points on their own.

Thank you Mayor, and the rest of the New Orleans and Jefferson Parish officials.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.