Nearly 2 million people fled the Louisiana coast after New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin predicted that Hurricane Gustav would be the "mother of all storms".

In the event when Hurricane Gustav made landfall on Sept. 1 west of New Orleans it caused less damage than expected, and the city's levees held.

But the authorities' prudence in declaring a mandatory evacuation was credited as the reason for the low death toll, with just six storm-related deaths.

Previously Gustav tore through Haiti, killing 75 people there, and damaged 100,000 homes in Cuba's western province of Pinar de Rio. AlertNet has a Haiti floods briefing.

AlertNet also has a Hurricane Katrina crisis briefing for background on the 2005 tragedy and its aftermath.