NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The solemn ceremonies for the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina on Friday for the most part were blown away by Tropical Storm Gustav, which threatens to become a hurricane and poses the biggest threat to New Orleans since the killer 2005 storm.

An early morning symbolic burial service in honor of the unclaimed bodies left behind by Katrina, and a bell ringing service scheduled for 9:38 a.m. CDT — when the first levee broke inundating the city — were the only events that remained on what would have been a day of remembrance of the devastating storm.

Instead, preparations were under way in the event Gustav struck early next week. The National Guard was scheduled to begin convoying into New Orleans on Friday, while some nursing homes and hospitals planned to start moving patients further inland and the state began moving 9,000 inmates from coastal lockups.

An evacuation order for New Orleans was likely, Mayor Ray Nagin said, but not before Saturday Meanwhile, residents of areas further south could be told to leave starting Friday, Gov. Bobby Jindal said.

Federal, state and local officials expressed confidence that plans put in place since Katrina would protect residents.

“Ladies and gentlmen, in my estimation, I think we’re ready for this threat,” Nagin told a news conference Thursday.

The state activated 3,000 Guardsmen on Wednesday, another 2,000 on Thursday, Jindal said. Jindal said he has ordered 1,500 of them to be in New Orleans Friday.

The new troops would beef up the 360 Guardsmen who have been in the city since Katrina helping to police the city.

And as far away as New York City, ambulance companies were preparing to send trucks and crews down to the Gulf Coast. Citywide Mobile Response Corp. spokesman Isaac Newman said his company was dispatching five ambulances along with 15 crew members early Friday from its headquarters in the Bronx.

Projections showed Gustav arriving early next week as a Category 3 storm, with winds of 111 mph or greater, anywhere from the Florida Panhandle to eastern Texas. But forecasts are extremely tentative several days out, and the storm could change course and strength.

Mississippi and Louisiana also were beginning preparations to switch interstate lanes so that all traffic would flow north, in the direction an evacuation would follow.

A problem could be the Louisiana State University football game scheduled for Saturday afternoon in Baton Rouge.

Gov. Jindal said he’s not planning to have LSU call off its football team’s home opener against Appalachian State. The 92,000-seat Tiger Stadium is sold out and thousands of tailgaters will fill the parking lots around it. But Jindal acknowledged that could change because the of the interference with contraflow.

Nagin said people still living in the small trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency after Katrina should take immediate steps to plan evacuations.

“Travel trailers are unsafe during heavy winds,” Nagin said. “I want all of our citizens to make certain they have a plan for leaving the trailers when advised to do so.”