CNN) — Hurricane Gustav began to lash the southern Louisiana coastline early Monday as it moved closer to an expected midday landfall, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

The streets of the French Quarter in New Orleans clear out as residents evacuate in anticipation of Hurricane Gustav.

1 of 3 more photos » While forecasters said it could intensify a bit before moving inland, it will not likely be the Category 4 storm that had been predicted — a possibility that added urgency to mass evacuation orders in recent days.

Nearly all of the roughly 2 million people in coastal Louisiana and the New Orleans area had cleared out ahead of Hurricane Gustav on Sunday night.

Road, rail and air links out of New Orleans began to close as the first storm bands began to strike the city. But more than 1.9 million people had fled New Orleans and its surrounding parishes by Sunday night, and fewer than 10,000 people were thought to remain in New Orleans, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said, citing the city’s police chief.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin had demanded an evacuation of the city, which still is recovering from 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. Forecasters warned Gustav — a Category 3 storm similar to Katrina — could hit Louisiana with devastating effect by early Monday afternoon.

Jindal said New Orleans’ levees should “barely hold or barely be overtopped” if the storm, as predicted Sunday evening, hit southwest of the city.

But even a slight shift to the east could bring “very significant flooding in these areas,” he said. iReport.com: Did you stay? Share your story

A leading researcher said the hurricane probably would test New Orleans’ western levees, which, unlike levees in other parts of the city, didn’t receive the brunt of Katrina’s force in 2005. The western levees are low in some sections, he said.

“From the west bank of New Orleans all the way across to Morgan City … we’re going to see communities potentially go under water from levee overtopping and potential breaching,” said Louisiana State University Professor Ivor van Heerden, who warned long before Katrina that a major hurricane would be catastrophic for New Orleans.

At 2 a.m. ET, forecasters said Gustav was a Category 3 storm and was centered about 170 miles (275 km) south-southeast of New Orleans and it was moving northwest across the central Gulf of Mexico at 16 mph — the same speed and track reported late Sunday.

The storm had sustained winds of 115 mph (184 kph), the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida, said. Category 3 hurricanes have sustained winds from 111 mph to 130 mph (178 kph to 209 kph).

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Hurricane-force winds could hit Louisiana’s southern coast by sunrise Monday, and the storm’s center could hit southwest of New Orleans by early Monday afternoon, CNN meteorologists said. Watch residents leaving »

Storm surges of 10 to 14 feet above normal tides are expected near and to the east of Gustav’s center, forecasters said. Rain accumulations between 6 to 12 inches are possible over parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas, with isolated amounts of up to 20 inches, through Wednesday morning, according to forecasters.

Gustav killed at least 51 people in southwestern Haiti and eight in the neighboring Dominican Republic last week before moving to Cuba, which said it evacuated 250,000 people from the storm’s path. No storm-related deaths in Cuba were immediately reported; a Cuban official said many people were injured on Cuba’s Isle of Youth. Watch residents talk about damage in Cuba »

In New Orleans, Lt. Col. Jerry Sneed, the city’s emergency operations chief, said government agencies had evacuated 18,000 residents who were without transportation.

Jindal said the New Orleans area had finished evacuating homebound and nursing home patients by 7 p.m. ET Sunday, and 73 critical-care patients deemed OK to move still were in the process of being moved out of the area. Watch why one New Orleans man refuses to leave »

Some critical-care patients had to stay at medical facilities. Eighty patients remained Sunday evening at New Orleans Children’s Hospital, more than half of them in a critical care unit. Nurse Crystal Mayeaux said she will not leave them.

“We are attached to all the babies here,” Mayeaux said. “They know us.”

Highways out of town were packed all day with evacuees from Louisiana and Mississippi.

“It was bumper-to-bumper for about 10 hours trying to get out,” said Roberto Ascencio of the New Orleans suburb of Gretna.

Charter flights, paid for with federal funds, carried thousands of evacuees to other Southern cities. The air evacuation was part of a detailed plan developed in response to criticism after Katrina, a Category 3 storm, flooded most of New Orleans, flattened beach towns in Mississippi and killed more than 1,800 people.

Nagin said New Orleans would impose a “dusk-to-dawn” curfew for anyone left. Watch Nagin voice concern about storm’s potential effect on the city »

The city-wide curfew will continue until the threat of the storm passes, Nagin said, warning looters would be dealt with harshly. Watch Nagin warn would-be looters »

“Anybody who’s caught looting in the city of New Orleans will go directly to Angola [Louisiana State Penitentiary]. You will not have a temporary stay in the city. You go directly to the big house, in general population,” he said.

The storm altered plans for the Republican National Convention, which is scheduled to run from Monday through Thursday in Minnesota.

Rick Davis, campaign manager for presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain, said Monday’s session would run only from 3 to 5:30 p.m. CT, and will include only activities necessary to launch the event. Watch report on Republicans’ altered plans »

Convention plans for the rest of the week will be made as the storm is assessed, he said.

Earlier Sunday, President Bush said he would forgo an appearance at the convention to meet with emergency workers and evacuees in Texas.

Also Sunday, a federally supported computer projection says Gustav could cause up to $32.8 billion in property damage when it hits the Gulf Coast.

The software, developed by FEMA and the National Institute of Building Sciences, also projected Sunday that about 75,000 structures will be destroyed. The path also ensnares about 180 hospitals and more than 1,100 police and fire stations.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said government agencies were “10 times better prepared” than before — but “that doesn’t mean everything is going to go right,” he said.

“Anybody who thinks everything is going to go perfect just doesn’t know what they’re talking about,” Barbour said.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Hanna was churning in the Atlantic Ocean on Sunday night and was expected to be near or over the southeastern Bahamas during the next day or two, the hurricane center said. It had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph, the center said

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