NATCHEZ — Every hotel and bed and breakfast room is booked to capacity by evacuees and has been since Wednesday.

Pat Isaac, front desk manager at the Days Inn, said her hotel rooms are booked beginning Saturday through Wednesday.

Eola General Manager Ron Brumfield said once his hotel filled up he started referring people to the state hotline to find rooms elsewhere.

He said the hotel is prepared for the crowd, most of which is slated to arrive Saturday.

“It’s basically business as usual except gearing more staff and ordering more supplies and making sure there’s diesel for the generators,” Brumfield said. “It’s just the regular checklist.”

Comfort Suites General Manager Kay Deweese said once her hotel was full, they started turning people away to other Comfort Suites locations in Texas and even Arkansas.

With everything filled up, the Natchez Convention and Visitors Bureau is asking any resident who is willing to open their house to evacuees to call the CVB.

The Natchez CVB has been calling on volunteers to be information providers, making sure WiFi is ready for anyone to use and notifying hotels of the expected crowds.

Many downtown restaurants close on Sunday and with so many guests in town, hours might need to shift, Tourism Director Connie Taunton said.

“If we have that many people in town, they might want to reconsider being open on Sunday,” she said.

Meanwhile at local grocery stores and Wal-Mart, nonperishable items and bottled water were the main focus of shoppers.

At Wal-Mart around 5 p.m., two cases of water were left on the shelves.

Natchez resident Carmen Yearta went to the Wal-Mart gas station with five empty gas cans to stock up for her generator and chainsaw.

“I figured I’d just bring five, I didn’t want to be greedy with everyone else waiting for gas,” she said.

She said lines for gas weren’t too bad and expects people are procrastinating.

“I’ve been at this a long time, I know the drill,” she said.

Barry Loy, retail operations manager for The Markets, said he is not afraid of running out of items, yet.

“We still have products; we reordered, preordered,” he said. “We’re not out of business, we’re in pretty good shape.”

A rush of incoming evacuees, however, might drain the stores’ resources, Loy said.

“We’re not going to run out today or tomorrow, but depending on what the influx of people might be, but we feel we’re in pretty good shape,” Loy said.

And while residents brace themselves for evacuees and the storm, county officials are putting their heads together to get ready for what’s next.

Adams County Emergency Management Agency Director Stan Owens said he spent Thursday meeting with local agencies like the Red Cross and the United Way to make sure they’re prepared.

He said the biggest concern right now is possibly having a shortage of volunteers to help.

Law enforcement, fire department, public works and ambulance service officials, among others, will meet at 9:30 a.m. today at the Copiah-Lincoln Community College Multipurpose Room.

“I just want to make sure everyone is on the same page,” Owens said.

Planning and preparation is the name of the game, and that’s all that can be done until it’s known for sure what Gustav is going to do, Owens said.

“It’s a waiting game but a very busy waiting game,” Owens said.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour declared a state of emergency Thursday afternoon.

In Concordia Parish, emergency officials are preparing to direct evacuations straight through the parish and further on to Bastrop, Monroe and Shreveport, where there are larger shelters.

Concordia Parish should be the last place to fill up from evacuees, Concordia Parish Emergency Director Morris White said.

“If you put all of the people (who initially evacuate) up north and the storm turns and lands near New Orleans, the people who waited and have to make a break for it don’t have to go as far,” he said.

The parish is not getting a big influx of evacuation traffic right now because the interstates are still open, allowing people to travel more directly to the large evacuation points, White said.

“When we start getting evacuations through here is when the interstates overload,” he said.

But just in case, White and Concordia Parish’s emergency personnel are getting together to plan what they are going to do and how they will help people along the evacuation route, including erecting evacuation route signs.