NEW ORLEANS: Strong winds and rain began to lash the Gulf Coast early Monday as Hurricane Gustav continued its path toward the coast of Louisiana, where the center of the storm was expected to make landfall around midday. Nearly two million people from Texas to Alabama fled the coast on Sunday, anticipating a storm that could rival Hurricane Katrina in its destructive power. "Hurricane force winds are moving on shore as we speak," Bill Read, director of the National Hurricane Center, said on CNN early this morning. With New Orleans largely emptied of its residents after a mandatory evacuation order, Hurricane Gustav, a Category 3 storm on the scale of 1 to 5, was centered about 85 miles south of New Orleans. Hurricane-force winds extended out for up to 70 miles, and the storm was moving northwest at about 16 miles an hour, according to the National Hurricane Center in a bulletin at 7 a.m., ET. The coast was already being buffeted by powerful winds early Monday morning. The center of the storm was forecast to cross the Louisiana coast at around midday, local time. Officials predicted devastation for towns in the storm's path, tidal surges of up to 14 feet and possible destruction of parts of New Orleans still recovering from Hurricane Katrina. But no significant change in the storm's strength was expected before it made landfall, said the National Hurricane Center. On Sunday, interstate highways across the region had been jammed bumper to bumper in one of the largest evacuations in American history. With memories of the shaky response to Hurricane Katrina fresh, officials from President George W. Bush on down were on high alert; Bush himself described the preparations and warned residents to get out of the storm's way. For the most part, the evacuation appeared to go smoothly, particularly the official efforts to get the poor, elderly and infirm out of New Orleans, Port Arthur, Texas, and other cities that could be in the storm's path. There was no sign that the disaster of 2005