NATCHEZ – With Hurricane Katrina expected to land near the mouth of the Mississippi River about 1 p.m. Monday, local emergency responders met early Saturday afternoon to prepare for the worst.

The storm, as of 1 p.m. Saturday a Category 3 storm with maximum sustained winds near 115 miles per hour, could become a Category 4 or even 5 storm by the time it reaches land, Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) officials said in a statewide conference call.

That could mean as much as one foot of rain in some places and hurricane-force winds as far north as Interstate 20 in central Mississippi.

All Natchez hotels were already booked up as of 8 a.m. Saturday, according to Adams County Civil Defense.

The Red Cross’ Adams County chapter, where the meeting was held, will open its shelter at Natchez High’s Steckler Building at 3 p.m. Sunday. It also looks as though it will open its additional shelters.

Those will include Parkway Baptist Church at Seargent S. Prentiss Drive and Melrose-Montebello Parkway, Community Chapel Church of God on Morgantown Road and Washington Baptist Church on Old U.S. Highway 84 No. 1 just off U.S. 61.

That’s because Louisiana declared mandatory evacuations for the southern part of that state, causing 200,000 to 250,000 Louisianans to seek shelter inland as early as Saturday morning.

That doesn’t include any evacuees – as of Saturday afternoon, voluntary evacuees – from Florida and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where storm surges are expected to reach up to 14 to 16 feet, what MEMA said is a huge surge for that area.

Pets, except service animals such as seeing-eye dogs, are not allowed in Red Cross shelters or just outside the front of the buildings. People with pets can keep them in RV’s or tents outside the immediate shelter area but are warned weather could become severe.

Other churches and any other non-Red Cross shelters are being asked not to open or, if they do, to refer evacuees to shelters to the north of the Miss-Lou until such shelters fill up.

That’s because, if the Miss-Lou is hit hard by hard rain, flooding, high winds and the like from Katrina, the shelters here may become a refuge for locals without a safe place to stay, said civil defense officials.

The addresses of functioning shelters in Mississippi will be available as soon as possible at MEMA’s Web site, www.msema.org.

Concordia Parish civil defense and emergency responders are keeping on eye on the storm to see whether shelters should be open in that parish, as they have been in previous severe storms. But as of Saturday afternoon, they still planned to send evacuees farther north because local shelter locations, such as Vidalia High’s gym, do not have air conditioning.

Meanwhile, the Adams County Red Cross chapter is sending out a call to all nurses and nursing students to help at the Natchez shelters.

Don Winter, local Red Cross shelter coordinator, said classes will be held at 6 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday at the Red Cross office on North Union Street to train new volunteers in time for Katrina.

Specific class times weren’t set as of early Saturday afternoon.

For details or to volunteer, call the Adams County Red Cross office at (601) 442-3656.

In addition, the Adams County Civil Defense Office is asking all civil defense (Community Emergency Response Team, or CERT) volunteers to be ready to man phones or handle other tasks as soon as that office opens for 24-hour service at noon Sunday.

Such volunteers can call the Civil Defense Office at (601) 442-7021.

In addition, the Civil Defense Office is putting together newly formed search-and-rescue teams in case they are needed.

The Civil Defense Office was warning Miss-Lou grocery and discount stores to be prepared for an influx of locals seeking food, water and other storm supplies.

Wal-Mart in Natchez was already busy Saturday afternoon, with workers stocking bottled water and other supplies.

Assistant Manager Todd Kurtz said the store was expecting more hurricane relief merchandise Sunday, including batteries, tarps, gas cans and easy-to-prepare foods such as tuna.

In other storm-related news:

City and county officials on Saturday signed state of emergency declarations for Adams County and Natchez so that public works crews can be used to clear debris on private property if needed.

To aid evacuees from Louisiana, both Louisiana and Mississippi will begin contraflow, or reverse lane flow, on interstates 55 and 59 starting at 4 p.m. today.

On I-55, all lanes will travel northbound up to mile marker 31, south of U.S. 84 in Brookhaven. On I-59, all lanes will travel northbound to mile marker 21, south of Poplarville. All southbound traffic will be prohibited past those mile markers, according to MEMA.

Once the storm is over, evacuees from the following states can call the following numbers for information about traveling back home: Mississippi, (601) 987-1211; Louisiana, (800) 469-4828 (toll-free); Florida, (800) 342-3557 (toll-free); and Alabama, (888) 588-2848 (toll-free).