Last night, mayor Ray Nagin demanded a quick evacuation of New Orleans, meant to protect the city’s residents from the wrath of Hurricane Gustav.

The dangerous phenomenon is expected to grow into a Category 5 danger and 1 million people already fled the Gulf Coast in order to safely get out of its way.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin bluntly told citizens: "You need to be scared. You need to be concerned, and you need to get your butts moving out of New Orleans right now. This is the storm of the century."

Mayor Ray Nagin concluded its call to the people with the same request that everyone should leave the scene as soon as possible: "If you are stubborn enough, if you are not taking this as seriously as we need you to take it, and if you decide to stay; you are on your own," he said, adding that "Anyone who decides to stay, I'll say it like I said it before Katrina: make sure you have an axe, because you will be carving your way, or busting your way out of your attic to get on your roof with waters that you will be surrounded with in this event."

The massive evacuation was carried out using trains, planes, buses and cars, as the authorities wanted to avoid another incident similar to what happened during the Katrina hurricane. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast in Louisiana and neighbouring Mississippi, leaving more than 1,800 people dead.

Gustav is already responsible for killing 81 people through its floods and landslides in Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

At its current Category 3 status, Gustav registers winds near 125 mph and it is expected to regain its strength as it will travel toward the US coast over warmer waters. The storm was expected to make US landfall on Monday afternoon.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center is closely monitoring the hurricane and recording any useful data, but unfortunately, aside from alerting the public and developing different scenarios about its path and damages, there is really not much that can be done.

"Gustav is forecast to remain a major hurricane through landfall along the northern Gulf Coast," the National Hurricane Center in Miami (NHC) said.

More than 11.5 million Gulf Coast residents from Florida to southern Texas could be affected by Gustav, which would batter more than 175,000 square kilometres of coastline, the US Census Bureau said.

Thousands were streaming further inland from the US states of Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama, where President George W Bush declared an emergency, allowing the federal government to coordinate disaster relief efforts.

Meanwhile authorities in Cuba on Sunday were moving to assess damage and allow evacuees to return to their homes. Gustav swept through the western part of the island on Saturday.

According to reports by the state-run Cuban News Agency (ACN), more than 250,000 people were evacuated from their homes in four western provinces and island regions on Friday and Saturday as the storm approached.