NEW: Gulf Coast braces, again, for hurricane as Zeta takes aim

This time, Zeta — with 65 mph winds and centered 485 miles south of the Mississippi River’s mouth — was on a track for southeast Louisiana. Its approach frayed nerves in New Orleans, where thousands of evacuees left homeless by Laura are sheltered in hotels.

“It really is scary, and I don’t know what to do,” said Yolanda Lockett, who evacuated her Lake Charles apartment — now a rain-soaked, moldy mess — ahead of Laura at the end of August. “I’m physically and mentally tired,” she said, standing outside a New Orleans hotel.

Hurricane warnings went up from the central Louisiana coast to the Alabama state line. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards declared an emergency ahead of the storm. And commercial fishermen began a familiar hurricane preparation ritual.

Some boats that normally carry tourists in Cancun took refuge in a nearby lagoon channel, anchored among the mangroves to avoid the battering wind, waves and storm surge. Boat captain Francisco Sosa Rosado noted they had to perform the same maneuver barely three weeks ago, when the area was hit by a stronger Hurricane Delta, which made landfall with top winds of 110 mph.

“With Delta, the gusts of wind were very strong ... the anchor lines were at risk of breaking,” Sosa Rosado said. "I hope it won’t be as bad with this hurricane.”

Trees felled by Delta littered parts of Cancun, stacked along roadsides and in parks, and there was concern they could become projectiles when Zeta blew through. A number of stoplights around the vacation destination remained unrepaired since Delta.

“We’re getting pretty good at it for doing it five times this season so far,” said Robert Campo as he readied his marina at Shell Beach for the storm. The routine includes removing gas pumps used to fuel boats, loading frozen bait onto old school buses that have been converted into mobile freezer units and tying down trash cans to keep them from floating off.

“The downfall of it is, when... we’re down for four or five days, that’s four or five days nobody’s fishing. That’s four or five days nobody is shrimping. That’s four or five days no economic wheels are turning.”

“It’s killing our fishing, man,” Acy Cooper, a shrimper in Plaquemines Parish at Louisiana’s southeastern tip, said. “Killing us.”

On Dauphin Island, located off the Alabama coast south of Mobile, workers at Dauphin Island Marina prepared for Zeta on Tuesday even though little remained of the business to protect after it was pummeled by Sally in September. Pilings with no decking rise from the water, and a few boats that sunk during that hurricane are still on the bottom.

“Right now we’re packing stuff up just to be safe,” said marina employee Jess Dwaileebe. “We don’t have any docks or fuel pumps at this point. Sally took it all out.”

In Waveland, Mississippi, hardware store operator David Hubbard said a few people were moving boats out of the town harbor, but he has yet to see a rush of people buying storm supplies. Most people already have what they need because Zeta is only the latest threat, he said.

Zeta made landfall in Mexico on Monday as a hurricane just north of the ancient Mayan city of Tulum with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph. It weakened to a tropical storm as it crossed over land, but it was expected to regain hurricane strength over the Gulf.