At her home in Lakesite, Mary Rockefeller said she has the Weather Channel on constantly.

Every three hours, Mrs. Rockefeller, 57, checks online for updates on the path of Hurricane Gustav, which is possibly on track to hit the New Orleans region and the homes of her husband Doug’s four grown children and their families.

“The way it’s headed, it’ll be very bad for the whole area,” said Mrs. Rockefeller, who left Louisiana with her husband two years ago, exhausted by the constant uncertainty about when the next storm would hit and whether this time they’d lose everything.

Weather forecasters say Gustav could grow into a category 3 hurricane or stronger when it gets over the warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico.

Nine of the Rockefellers’ family members still in the path of the storm — including three children — are making plans to drive eight hours to Chattanooga today and hunker down with them, Mrs. Rockefeller said.

In advance of the storm’s landfall — forecast for Tuesday morning on the Gulf Coast west of New Orleans — Hamilton County Emergency Services and the Red Cross of Greater Chattanooga are preparing to set up shelters to house 150 evacuees who could come to Chattanooga, officials said.

The Chattanooga-Hamilton County Health Department is preparing to provide medical support to evacuees, said spokeswoman Jennifer Yim.

Gustav already had killed about 70 people in the Caribbean by Friday afternoon, the Associated Press reported. The storm was elevated from a tropical storm to a category 1 hurricane late Friday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service’s National Hurricane Center.

Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Alabama are planning to issue mandatory evacuation orders before landfall, according to the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency’s Web site.

If an evacuation is mandated in Louisiana, federal emergency personnel will help transport to safety — by rail or by Federal Emergency Management Agency-chartered flights — those evacuees who have no way to get out of the storm’s path, said Jeremy Heidt, spokesman for the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency.

Tennessee is prepared to accept 6,000 evacuees, many of whom will take Federal Emergency Management Agency flights from Louisiana to National Guard bases in Memphis, Nashville and Knoxville, he said. Another 150 are set for Chattanooga, he said.

Those figures do not include “self-evacuees,” who will leave voluntarily under their own power and likely will stay in hotels or with friends and family, he said.

The planned aid to evacuees comes as a relief to Mrs. Rockefeller.

“If (evacuees) end up here for an extended period of time, they’re gonna need so much help,” she said. “It’s going to be awful for them, and I think it’s wonderful that the Red Cross is preparing to help people.”

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