Volunteers pitched in to make sandbags, and soon ran out.

About a dozen people stood in line outside a baseball field tucked in a mostly residential part of New Orleans, as a handful of volunteers shoveled sand into bags before handing them to neighbors and strangers on Friday.

The volunteer sandbag operation came together when Ben Markey, the owner of the Mid City Yacht Club, a bar across the street from the ballpark, picked up the bags. Then a friend of his who owns a logistics company dumped a load of sand near the batting area.

They started handing out sandbags about 7:30 a.m., said Mr. Markey, 43. Social media and local news reports soon spread the word, and about three hours and 200 sandbags later, they’d run out.

Patrick Staunton, a neighbor, was among those shoveling. “I feel guilty we don’t have more,” he said.

The Mid City Yacht Club, which got its name because boats were tied up to the baseball field’s fence and abandoned there in the days after Katrina, plans to stay open during the storm.

The business hasn’t flooded since Katrina, but Mr. Markey said he was taking precautions: The bar has a generator, and a couple of sandbags of its own as a last line of defense.

New Orleans, which usually hands out sandbags during severe tropical weather, is not doing so for Barry, Ms. Cantrell said Friday. The city is concerned about sand clogging storm drains, but the mayor said residents can use sandbags if they already have them, or buy them at suppliers like Home Depot, so long as they remove the bags after the storm passes.