Some 50 miles from the congestion and chaos of New Orleans, residents in the Bayou Town of Houma, Louisiana are quietly preparing for the worst.
Those who could left the shrimping community by late morning.
"We're trying to get these people out of harms way and get them to a safe place," says Phillip Maxwell an administrator at a nursing home.
But many here, like Donna Lowrey, say they can't afford to leave.
"This is scary," says Lowrey. She'll ride out the storm on a shrimp boat crammed into Houma's tiny canal, her 3-year-old daughter and her boyfriend by her side.
"I don't know what's gonna happen. I know it's probably going to be bad," she ads.
Just two blocks away, brothers Stan and Kent Jarboe will make their stand in a home that used to belong to their grandmother. It's old, but has withstood decades of storms. They're bringing family and friends to their home, mainly, because the county's hospital is across the street.
"If anything gets really bad, I can go right here to the hospital. Hopefully, it's not going to be that bad, but you never know," says Kent Jarboe.