Thousands of drivers relied on General Motors’ OnStar service this past weekend, for getting out of Hurricane Gustav's way. The callers, who were mostly calm, patiently asked the operators for the best path out of New Orleans, Louisiana and other Gulf Coast cities.

OnStar stepped up its staff to around 500 operators and set up emergency plans at the Pontiac, Michigan, Oshawa, Ontario, and Charlotte, North Carolina call centers. Calls concerning the storm were transferred to specially trained OnStar advisors, many of whom had been on duty during Hurricane Katrina.

Unsurprisingly, people were much more prepared for Gustav than Katrina. In fact, the advisors reported that callers were generally leaving well in advance of Hurricane Gustav.

"There's a lot of people that are stranded on the evacuation routes," said Brad Williams, a service manager for OnStar at the command center in Downtown Detroit. "They're more prepared. They know what questions have been asked," he said.

Because the service had expanded from around 3 million to 5 million subscribers since Katrina, the managers expected Sunday's calls to reach 75,000 due to the hurricane –almost double the normal amount. As it turns out, calls reached into the thousands early Saturday, and were pouring in at over 3,000 per hour on Sunday.

+ The Detroit News: Drivers rely on OnStar to evade Hurricane Gustav