New Orleans hotels batten down amid Hurricane Gustav

Early efforts to evacuate New Orleans — efforts that appeared to be far bolder and better organized than three years ago — helped New Orleans’ 30,000 visitors get out safely before Hurricane Gustav swept the city Monday.

The city’s Metropolitan Convention & Visitors Bureau added vehicles to shuttle tourists to New Orleans International Airport and airlines reportedly added customer services. By 6 p.m. Sunday, all commercial flights ended and most tourists had managed to evacuate.

Only a few hotels stayed open, to house media and support personnel. Most properties were sealed up with only security personnel remaining behind. While electricity was out in large portions of the city, including the French Quarter, the largest properties used generators to keep air conditioning running. After Katrina, even buildings without serious flooding sustained major mold damage in the humid late Louisiana summer.

Meanwhile, major hotels such as the Ritz-Carlton closed over the weekend as the storm bore down, in accordance with the city’s mandatory evacuation order.

“We closed the Ritz-Carlton, New Orleans today [Sunday] to ensure the safety and security of our guests as well as the ladies and gentlemen that service them,” said general manager Myra deGersdorff.

Starwood properties, the W, Sheraton on Canal and the Westin New Orleans Canal Place also closed. Assuming the levees hold and the city comes through the storm largely intact, those hotels were expecting to reopen Thursday.

The Royal Sonesta, one of the French Quarter’s landmark properties, closed during the storm but expects to reopen by Friday.

Many major properties were waiving cancellation fees for anyone with a reservation during the evacuation and immediately after the recovery.

– Chris Erskine, Los Angeles Times staff writer

[Photo: Canal Street in New Orleans on Monday. Matthew Hinton AFP/Getty Images]

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This entry was posted on Monday, September 1, 2008 at 5:03 pm by Chris Erskine and is filed under New Orleans & Louisiana, News, Tips & Advice, Southern States. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.