Dave Martin/AP Members of the Alabama National Guard rescue children from floodwaters in the Orange Grove Project of Mobile, Alabama.

PASCAGOULA, Miss. (AP) - Hurricane Georges plowed into the Gulf Coast yesterday and then parked there, weakening to a tropical storm but pouring rain at an inch-an-hour pace for what could be a long and ruinous stay.

Winds dropped to just over 69 mph, six mph below hurricane strength and down from a high of 110. New Orleans was spared the catastrophic direct hit that many in the Big Easy had feared.

But that was little comfort to the thousands who huddled in shelters from Florida to Louisiana and were expected to remain there for days. Outside, all was chaos - trees ripped from the ground, windows sucked from their frames, floods roaring down roads.

''In some areas, there's water to rooftops and four to five feet of water in many other homes. I've never seen anything like it in more than 50 years,'' said Jackson County administrator George Touart, after a tour of Pascagoula, where 15 inches of rain fell overnight.

Forecasters said up to 30 inches could fall by the time the storm clears out sometime in the middle of the week.

National Guardsmen waded through chest-deep water to carry children and lead adults to safety from a flooded housing project near downtown Mobile, Ala. In the Florida Panhandle, Guardsmen had to rescue about 200 people from their flooded homes.

Two storm-related deaths in the United States were reported. Earlier, in its odyssey across the Caribbean, Georges killed more than 300 people.

More than 678,000 customers were without power across the Gulf Coast.

As the storm moved in, more than 1.5 million people had been told to evacuate along the coast, and hotel rooms were hard to find as far away as Memphis, Tenn., and Dallas.

Nearly 14,700 people in Mississippi alone were staying in shelters, though their safety was not assured: The roof was ripped off a gymnasium at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College in Gautier, forcing the evacuation of 404 residents.

In New Orleans, 10,000 spent the night in the Superdome.

Most evacuees were told to put off any plans to return to their homes because it was too dangerous.

"All I need to have is the name and address of their next of kin," said Jim Maher, director of Mississippi's Emergency Management Agency.

At 5 p.m. EDT, the hurricane's center was sitting above Biloxi, Miss., moving northward at 3 mph. It was expected to drift inland, but slowly, exposing already saturated ground to unceasing rain.

Local effects from the storm may be felt as early as Wednesday or Thursday of this week, according to meteorologists tracking the storm.