NEW ORLEANS — Laurent Paige, 66, waved to his neighbor on Friday from his front-porch swing in the Broadmoor neighborhood of this city.

“I’m ready — I got my life jacket,” he hollered, pantomiming some swim strokes.

New Orleans residents like Mr. Paige were keeping an eye on Tropical Storm Nate, the latest system of this busy Atlantic hurricane season. It strengthened into a hurricane on Friday night, and the National Hurricane Center in Miami said it was expected to make landfall on the central Gulf Coast as a Category 2 hurricane Saturday night.

While forecasters believe that the brunt of the storm will slide east of New Orleans, Mr. Paige was taking no chances and stockpiled bottled water, batteries and ready-to-eat food.

And yet: “I really don’t think that this storm, Nate, is anything to be scared of,” he said with the confidence of someone who has endured more than six decades of hurricane seasons. What did worry him, though, was the water that will fall and accumulate — and might not move for a while.