President George W. Bush will skip the Republican National Convention on Monday and travel instead to Texas to meet with emergency workers and people who evacuated the Gulf Coast as Hurricane Gustav bore down.

He is urging residents to heed local officials' order to evacuate.

After a briefing Sunday at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, he said he was assured that New Orleans' levees "are "stronger than they have ever been." But he said people across the Gulf Coast and in New Orleans need to understand there is a serious risk of flooding from a storm of this size.

Bush says he will hold off traveling to Louisiana because he does not want to get in the way of emergency personnel.