Nagin says the Superdome will be available beginning Sunday morning as a refuge of last resort for those who can't get out of the city. He urges residents in low-lying areas of the city, such as Algiers and the 9th Ward, to begin evacuating. He says that he will wait until 30 hours before expected landfall of Katrina to issue an official order, as state guidelines recommend, but "we want you to take this a little more seriously and start moving -- right now, as a matter of fact."

8:30 p.m. Amtrak runs its last train out of New Orleans. The rail line had offered the city the train -- which had room for hundreds -- to use for evacuating people. But the city did not take Amtrak up on the offer, and the train leaves the station without any passengers.

By Saturday evening the mayor's legal staff is looking into "whether he can order a mandatory evacuation of the city, a step he's been hesitant to do because of potential liability on the part of the city for closing hotels and other businesses," according to the Times-Picayune. The paper also reports that on Saturday night Nagin tells local station WWL-TV, "Come the first break of light in the morning, you may have the first mandatory evacuation of New Orleans."

Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, calls Mayor Nagin, Gov. Blanco and Gov. Barbour to reiterate the dangers posed by the storm. "I just wanted to be able to go to sleep that night knowing that I did all I could do," Mayfield says.

.Sunday, Aug. 28

1 a.m. The National Hurricane Center announces that Hurricane Katrina has reached Category 4 and continues to move west-northwest, with a gradual turn to the northwest and possible strengthening expected later in the day.

8 a.m. The hurricane center upgrades Katrina to Category 5, the highest possible rating on the Saffir-Simpson scale. Its report concludes: "Katrina is expected to be a devastating Category 4 or 5 at landfall."

9:30 a.m. New Orleans Mayor Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Blanco hold a press conference to announce the first-ever mandatory evacuation of New Orleans. President Bush called Blanco at about 9 a.m. to discuss preparations for the storm and to encourage an evacuation. "I wish I had better news," Nagin says, "but we're facing the storm most of us have feared."

11 a.m. Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, holds a teleconference with officials at FEMA headquarters. FEMA director Michael Brown and Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff listen in on the briefings, according to the Times-Picayune and the Los Angeles Times. The information provided in the briefing is to be part of FEMA's daily briefings for President Bush.

Katrina Advisory No. 23, issued at 10 a.m., is the focus of Mayfield's message to FEMA, according to Frank Lepore, a public affairs officer with the hurricane center. The advisory -- titled "Potentially catastrophic Hurricane Katrina, even stronger, headed for Gulf Coast" -- says the hurricane, now Category 5, is expected to hit within 24 hours and that "preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion." The warning includes reports from an Air Force Hurricane Hunter aircraft indicating that maximum sustained winds have reached nearly 175 mph. It predicts that a coastal storm surge of 18 to 22 feet above normal tide levels -- "locally as high as 28 feet, along with large and dangerous battering waves" -- will occur "near and to the east of where the center makes landfall."

Mayfield's briefing to FEMA includes "warnings that Katrina's storm surge could overtop New Orleans' levees," the L.A. Times will report. "We were briefing them way before landfall," Mayfeld will tell the Times-Picayune. "It's not like this was a surprise. We had in the advisories that the levee could be topped." (Katrina Advisory No. 24, issued at 4 p.m. Sunday, mentions that possibility in the paragraph that begins "Coast storm surge flooding...")

11:31 a.m. President Bush gives a televised address from his estate in Crawford, Texas. The president devotes about one-fourth of the speech to Hurricane Katrina before talking about the Iraqi constitution. Bush says he has spoken with Blanco earlier in the morning, as well as the governors of Alabama, Florida and Mississippi.

Regarding the evacuation, Bush says: "We cannot stress enough the danger this hurricane poses to Gulf Coast communities. I urge all citizens to put their own safety and the safety of their families first by moving to safe ground. Please listen carefully to instructions provided by state and local officials."

Throughout the day: Because between 35 and 40 percent of Louisiana's National Guard is on duty in Iraq, Gov. Blanco has fewer than 6,000 troops available for responding to Katrina. Over the weekend, she activates about 3,500 of them; by Monday, about 5,700 are ready.

Realizing that the Louisiana National Guard is thinned by deployments in Iraq, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson offers to send his own state Guard troops, an offer that Blanco accepts. But in order to send the troops, Blanco must issue a formal request to the National Guard Bureau in Washington; according to the Boston Globe, she makes that request on Tuesday. New Mexico's troops arrive only at the end of the week. It's unclear why Blanco's formal request comes so late; state officials will later tell reporters that the governor's office, overwhelmed in the first days of the storm, had trouble dealing with the legal complexities -- red tape -- required to bring in a national response. Because of the legal difficulties Blanco encounters in trying to bring in other troops, Guard units from other states just trickle in.

Red tape appears to stand in the way of another critical issue on Sunday: evacuations. The Louisiana National Guard requests 700 buses from FEMA to evacuate people on the coast but receives only 100, again according to the Boston Globe. It's unclear why FEMA gave the Guard so few buses. A FEMA official later told the New York Times that it didn't offer Louisiana more buses because the state issued a formal request for buses only on Wednesday. In fact, state officials requested buses all through the week. It's unclear if they were asking in the right way. The state has not to date returned calls from Salon on this or any other matter.

Bush also declares a federal state of emergency for Mississippi. Gov. Blanco sends a second letter (PDF) to President Bush, increasing the request for federal emergency assistance to $130 million.

The Pentagon establishes Joint Task Force Katrina to coordinate the military response to the hurricane. The JTF's headquarters are in Mississippi, and Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré is put in command.

At around noon, the Regional Transit Authority begins to send buses to 12 locations throughout New Orleans to transport people to the Superdome, one of 10 shelters operating in the city. About 550 members of the Louisiana National Guard provide security and distribute food and water at the Superdome, while the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary makes preparations to assist the Coast Guard in rescue operations once the storm passes.

4:13 p.m. The National Hurricane Center issues a stark warning titled "Extremely dangerous Hurricane Katrina continues to approach the Mississippi River Delta; devastating damage expected."

The report says: "Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks, perhaps longer. At least one half of well-constructed homes will have roof and wall failure ... The majority of industrial buildings will become non-functional. Partial to complete wall and roof failure expected. All wood framed low-rising apartment buildings will be destroyed. Concrete block low-rise apartments will sustain major damage, including some wall and roof failure. High-rise office and apartment buildings will sway dangerously, a few to the point of total collapse. All windows will blow out.

"Airborne debris will be widespread and may include heavy items such as household appliances and even light vehicles. Sport utility vehicles and light trucks will be moved. The blown debris will create additional destruction. Persons, pets and livestock exposed to the winds will face certain death if struck.

"Power outages will last for weeks, as most power poles will be down and transformers destroyed. Water shortages will make human suffering incredible by modern standards."

6 p.m. As a curfew is imposed on the city of New Orleans, Molly's at the Market, a French Quarter bar known for ignoring hurricane warnings, closes its doors. "When they close, you know it's bad," says Bourbon Street resident Tip Andrews. "They never board up."

By Sunday night, approximately 25,000 people have gathered at the Superdome. The Louisiana National Guard has stocked the arena with three trucks of water and seven trucks of meals ready to eat, enough for 15,000 people for three days, a Guard spokesman tells the Times-Picaynue.

11:14 p.m. A New Orleans blogger named Kenneth Greelee, watching satellite images of the storm from his evacuation point in Galveston, Texas, writes: "There is a Schrödinger's Cat quality to watching the spinning red ball: does the New Orleans that I know even exist right now, hours before landfall?"

.Monday, Aug. 29

6 a.m. Hurricane Katrina makes landfall at Buras, La., a bayou town 70 miles southeast of New Orleans. The storm, which had previously been heading directly toward New Orleans with wind speeds of 175 mph, appears to have granted the city a last-minute reprieve, relaxing to 145-mph and veering slightly to the east. In photographs, Buras appears to be completely destroyed.

Over the next few hours, strong winds and rain pummel New Orleans, and tidal surges cause flooding in some parts. At 8:14, the National Weather Service issues a warning that a levee along the Industrial Canal -- which holds back water from the 9th Ward and St. Bernard Parish, on the city's east -- had been breached, and that 8 to 10 feet of flooding is expected. Mayor Nagin tells a local radio station that water is overwhelming the pump and levee system in the city's 9th Ward, and that some people may be stranded on their rooftops. Two large metal plates fly off the roof of the the Superdome, allowing rainwater to drip in. The Dome, where 25,000 people are holed up, loses electricity at around dawn; it runs on generator power, with lights dimmed and the air conditioning off.

In an interview with CBS's "Early Show" just as the storm hits, FEMA director Brown says he's pleased with how city and state officials have prepared for the hurricane, and he promises aid will soon flow into affected areas. "I started jamming up those supply lines as fast and as downward as I could to be ready to respond to anything these governors might need," Brown says.

Louisiana Gov. Blanco, also on "The Early Show," sounds satisfied with federal efforts. Bush's declaration of a federal emergency "allowed FEMA to come in here early," Blanco says. "We've set the stage for a lot of help for evacuation help, and the federal government is standing by. The president called. He was very supportive of our efforts. He was encouraging evacuation. He was very concerned. We appreciate his concern." In another interview on NBC, Blanco says, "I believe the water has breached the levee system, and is -- is coming in," but does not suggest that New Orleans is facing possible doom. It's unclear exactly what Blanco knew about the situation with the levees, but levees breaching had long been the nightmare scenario, warned about for many years by experts.

Neither does any federal official, including anyone at FEMA, express any concern about the levees.

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