NEW ORLEANS -- Even as the recovery from Hurricane Gustav continued, Louisiana's coastal parishes prepared Wednesday for another possible hit -- this time by Hurricane Ike.

Residents in Cameron Parish, a coastal area on the Texas state line, were under a mandatory evacuation order in preparation for Ike, state police said.

Ike was in the Gulf of Mexico and appeared to be heading for landfall on the Texas coast early Saturday.

A tropical storm warning was in effect from the mouth of the Mississippi River westward to east of Cameron, according to the National Weather Service. The warning means that tropical storm conditions are expected within the warning area within the next 24 hours.

A hurricane watch also is in effect from Cameron westward to Port Mansfield, Texas. Hurricane conditions are possible within the watch area by Friday, the weather service said.

Lafourche Parish President Charlotte Randolph declared a state of emergency and issued a mandatory evacuation for those who live south of the Leon Theriot Floodgates in Golden Meadow, as well as the community of Pointe-Aux-Chenes.

A Red Cross shelter has been opened at the Larose Civic Center.

Gov. Bobby Jindal said Louisiana still is monitoring the speed of the storm. The storm models show Ike tracking north, but if it remains slow-moving, a northern shift could cause greater impact on Louisiana, he said.

"This storm does not need to make landfall in Louisiana to have a tremendous impact on Louisiana, especially in southwest Louisiana, especially in coastal areas," Jindal said.

The state likely will get tidal surge in low-lying coastal areas and strong winds further into Lafayette and Lake Charles, Jindal said.

Ike's approach also prompted Entergy Corp. to pull power restoration crews out of the parish's southernmost areas.

Thirty-five percent of Lafourche customers had no power Wednesday, and Entergy predicted it would be Oct. 1 before power -- knocked out by Gustav -- is restored parishwide.

Nearly 45,000 East Baton Rouge Parish utility customers, or 23 percent, remained without electricity on Wednesday, according to the state Public Service Commission. Statewide, 112,000 or 5.6 percent were without power because of Gustav, the PSC said, down from 1.3 million outages the day after Gustav's Sept. 1 landfall.

Sixty percent of Iberville Parish customers had no power. Other parishes with double-digit outage percentages were: Ascension, Assumption, East and West Feliciana, Plaquemines, Pointe Coupee, St. John the Baptist and Terrebonne.

In Calcasieu Parish, residents in low-lying areas and mobile homes are being urged to seek alternate shelter beginning Thursday. Residents with special needs or those who need a ride out of the area and a place to stay will be able to board one of the 75 coach buses on standby at the civic center to help with evacuation.

Anyone with special needs should call 337-721-4020 if they need help evacuating.

Parish schools are closed Thursday and Friday.

Jindal said shelters are readied, buses are pre-staged for evacuation assistance and ambulances are ready for possible evacuations of medical patients, if needed.

"The good news is the resources are prepositioned. The buses are there. The ambulances are there," he said, but added, "We all certainly still hope that this will be a false alarm."

St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro has also issued a state of emergency and asked residents living outside of the parish's hurricane protection system to voluntarily leave. Those communities include the towns of Delacroix, Yscloskey and Alluvial City.

"We learned there was a slight wobble of the storm to the north. We're likely to get a four to six foot storm surge on the eastern edge of the parish on top of two-foot tidal activity," Taffaro said.

Earlier Wednesday, a state official apologized for confusion that led some New Orleans residents to the wrong location to sign up for emergency food stamps after Hurricane Gustav.

State Department of Social Services Secretary Ann Williamson blamed a last-minute decision to move the application point from a New Orleans church, where an estimated 2,000 had lined up in sweltering heat on Tuesday, to the air-conditioned Morial Convention Center.

Long lines plagued the post-Gustav federal food stamp program Tuesday in New Orleans and other cities.

There were long lines again Wednesday at the Morial Center but they had diminished by afternoon. Williamson said the state trained an additional 320 staffers to deploy around Louisiana and that about 1,500 applications were processed at the Morial Center in roughly two hours Wednesday.

More than 48,000 disaster food stamp applications were taken Wednesday, up from 30,000 a day earlier, Williamson said. And more sites were planned to be opened during the week.

"The logistics of it, while challenging, continue to be overcome," she said.

She said U.S. Department of Agriculture officials agreed to a state request to extend the sign-up period from seven days to 14 days -- which would continue it through Sept. 23.

Williamson said that the application sites will remain open until 8 p.m. and that sites in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Jefferson, Lafayette and Sorrento will open at 6 a.m.

Williamson stressed that the federal Disaster Food Stamps Program has strictly defined income eligibility and can only be used for the purchase of food. She also noted that those already in the regular food stamp program do not need to apply because their benefits will automatically be raised to the maximum amount allowable for September and their August benefits have been increased by 20 percent to replace lost food.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)