BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (CNN) — Less than 10,000 people are estimated to remain in New Orleans Sunday night, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said Sunday night, citing New Orleans Police Chief Warren Riley.

Jindal also noted some “good news” in the approach of Hurricane Gustav to an area devasted three years ago by Hurricane Katrina — if forecasts are “100 percent accurate … the levees will barely hold or barely be overtopped.”

“I want to emphasize, if the storm shifts slightly east, you could have very significant flooding in these areas,” he said.

Jindal said more than 200,000 people left New Orleans early Sunday, and National Guard and police forces are still combing the city broadcasting evacuation messages in English, Vietnamese and Spanish.

In the whole of the Louisiana coastal area, authorities estimate 95 percent of the people have evacuated, the governor said.

“That’ll put the total a little over 1.9 million people,” he said.

Jindal also acknowledged the unconfirmed reports of three critical-care patients who died during evacuation.

“When critically ill patients are evacuated, it certainly can be very risky,” he said. … We’ve got unconfirmed reports at this time of three deaths of critical care patients that occurred during the evacuation of those patients — two in Lake Charles, one in New Orleans.”

Katrina killed more than 1,800 people dead in 2005.

Earlier, Jindal said the Louisiana coast could expect tropical storm force winds as early as Sunday night.

“The important thing though is for people to take these warnings, take this opportunity very seriously. Now is the time to get out of harm’s way,” he said.

All but three of Louisiana’s 64 parishes had declared an emergency, and Jindal said nearly every parish along the coast had issued a mandatory evacuation.