Many seemed convinced that New Orleans would fare no better in this storm than it had three years ago. Shannon Branch, 34, said she had only recently saved enough money from her various jobs to move her three teenagers out of their government-provided trailer and into a rental house. Her family had just begun the work of rebuilding their home in the Lower Ninth Ward. “We’re going to start all over now, I guess,” she said.

Ms. Branch lost an aunt who stayed behind in Hurricane Katrina; her body remained unidentified for two years. “A lot of people, I think they wisened up now,” she said.

As the passengers settled in, no one seemed to know where the bus was heading. A helpful volunteer had informed riders that it would be Arkansas. A rumor went around that it was Tennessee. Finally, as the bus pulled out of the terminal, the driver was handed a map to Cuba, Ala., a town of 322 people on the Mississippi state line.

The word spread with the help of Stephanie Beach, a waitress who, thanks to her front-row seat and outgoing personality, became the closest thing the bus had to a cruise director. Having not known where the bus would take her, Ms. Beach, who was traveling with her two daughters and a man she described as “I guess my new boyfriend,” had put relatives throughout the region on standby.

Ms. Grant’s husband, Marvin Mercadal, 51, said: “We’re going to Cuba. Maybe we’ll learn a little Spanish.”

As the bus crept along the packed Interstate, memories of Hurricane Katrina were hard to avoid. “I had a Pomeranian, see that Pomeranian?” said Harry Sullivan, 51, pointing to a dog looking enviously comfortable perched between the front seats of an S.U.V. in the next lane. “She died in the flood. Her name was Bright Eyes.”

After more than five hours on the road with little progress, some passengers began to sneak into the bathroom to smoke cigarettes. Others loudly spoke their minds, demanding a break, to no avail. But Madeline Augusta, 55, sat without a word, attending to her 18-month-old grandson on the seat beside her. A second grandchild, an infant, slept spread across her parents’ laps.