Hurricane Gustav proved to be weaker than expected, only narrowly brushing New Orleans and leaving 80,000 residents without power, according to The Washington Post.
The National Weather Service downgraded the once-Category 4 hurricane to a tropical storm, The Post reported.
"They made a much bigger deal out of it, bigger than it needed to be," Gabriel Knight, a 31-year-old security worker in New Orleans' nearly empty French Quarter, told The Post. "I was here with Katrina. That was a nightmare. This was nothing."
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin told The Post that evacuees could expect to return to the city on Thursday.
-MAUREEN MCCARTY
