GULFPORT, Miss. – As darkness descended on the Gulf Coast, people from Louisiana to Florida wondered if they had made the right decision: Stay home or evacuate.

For each family, the answer would arrive early this morning on the winds of hulking Hurricane Ivan. After a fitful night of little or no sleep, pale light from an invisible sunrise would illuminate the soundness of each decision.

Carolyn Whitehead, 45, decided to move to a shelter at Central Middle School in Gulfport, Miss., along with 12 family members.

“When I leave out of here tomorrow I’m going to be thinking, “Is my house here or is it gone?’ said Whitehead, one of 156 evacuees who lined the school’s concrete hallways.

Ivan’s leading edge began wreaking havoc in the Florida Panhandle Wednesday afternoon. Tornadoes spawned by the storm killed two people in Panama City, Fla.

All along the Gulf coast, people speculated about where Ivan’s center would strike. Gulfport, Biloxi, Miss., and Mobile, Ala., were near the bull’s eye.

Wanda Bridges, 35, a dealer at Copa Casino in Gulfport, was just leaving a gas station when a reporter asked about her decision to ride out the storm in her brick home.

“If you run, you may not find anywhere to stay or to get gas,” she said.

There was no need to articulate what could happen if you stay. She and her husband and four children bought sandbags to protect against flooding and hoped for the best.

Officials estimated that a third of the 300,000 residents in the three-county area surrounding Biloxi and Gulfport evacuated. The others retreated to their homes or to shelters.

City streets along the Mississippi coast were all but deserted by nightfall. Businesses, including the state’s 12 floating casinos, were boarded up.

Strong winds and pounding rain churned the surf. Swaying traffic lights and rattling street signs bore witness to Ivan’s increasing fury.

The Copa Casino’s flashing sign at the edge of the water was the only bright light breaking up the gray skies over the coast.

On the main street, a few cars moved gingerly along at 15 mph. Among them, a taxi took an elderly couple inland. It moved slowly past stores boarded up with plywood.

Some trees snapped in the wind.

All but the most foolhardy had retreated indoors by sunset. A 7 p.m.-to-7 a.m. curfew took effect. It applied to all but police officers, firefighters and other emergency workers.

And people inside the emergency command center had begun to worry about them by nightfall. Two hospital evacuations had gone well.

Then, 10 ambulances and emergency trucks were dispatched to evacuate a nursing home. Discretion had become the better part of valor.

“When the storm hits, it’s too late to do anything,” said Jim Pallard, Harris County emergency department spokesman.

Not everyone seemed to understand the seriousness of the situation.

Bridges, the casino dealer, said some tourists wanted to continue gambling and couldn’t understand why the Copa had closed.

“We had to make people get up off the games to leave,” she said. “I think it (the casino) will float away.”

Glenn Miller, 38, owner of Jay Jay’s Pawn & Jewelry on U.S. 49, was among the last merchants to close up shop Wednesday afternoon.

Miller did not board up his windows. Based on his experience, he expressed no concern about the coming storm.

“Things hit the windows, but I don’t think they’ve ever been busted,” he said.

Miller’s only concession was a handful of sandbags placed at the foot of his front door. He moved nothing away from the windows.

“When the eye hits, it’s actually kind of exciting. You can see everything fly around,” he said.

Forecasters said hurricane-force winds of more than 100 mph extend 105 miles from the Ivan’s center. A storm surge of 10 to 16 feet and up to 15 inches of rain could accompany the howling gales, weathermen said.

And, yet, a handful of thrillseekers said they wanted to see the storm for themselves.

“There’s nothing like a severe storm to put a human being in their proper place,” said Prentice Howard, who is stationed at Naval Station Pascagoula, a few miles east of Gulfport and Biloxi. “I want to experience the power of nature. It sounds dumb to some people but that’s the way it is. Sort of like skydiving.”

Linda Kierce, who lives in one of Mississippi’s coastal mobile home parks, said she decided to seek shelter at her mother’s house.

“I’ve got a big tree in my yard,” she said. “If we get 80-mph winds, it’s going to fall and cut my house in half.”

Then, she headed home to pack up her belongings.

“I haven’t gotten my picture albums and my two dogs that I have to get out,” she said.

Like many people in Gulfport-Biloxi, Kierce said she has bad memories of Hurricane Camille, which devastated this area in 1969.

“They didn’t predict Camille to be bad, but it was terrible,” she said.

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(Dallas Morning News correspondent Scott Parks contributed to this report.)