We got off very lucky from Katrina down here in south Florida. But the storm is now a category four or five, and headed for the worst possible place--New Orleans, much of which is below sea level. This could be the worst natural disaster since Andrew, and there's a good chance of it being the worst in US history. I hope that everyone can get out--the odds aren't very good for anyone who stays. But experience shows that many will, thinking or hoping that it will turn, until it's too late for them. Brendan Loy is covering it closely, with lots of graphics.

[Update a few minutes later]

Isobars are lines of constant pressure. Check out this forecast of the storm.

[Update at 8 AM EDT]

It just occurs to me that if bin Laden got hold of a nuke, and set it off in New Orleans, it would be a trifle compared to what this storm may be about to do. They've been dodging these things for years--Betsy, Camille, Andrew...but their luck may have finally run out.

And this is heading for prime oil-production (and gasoline production) country. Expect a big jump in both oil futures and gas prices tomorrow.

[Update ten minutes later]

I've never been to New Orleans, but always meant to. I particularly wanted to see the French Quarter. If the worst happens, I may not ever get the chance, now.

[Update at 8:37 AM EDT]

I'm flying to Los Angeles tomorrow from Fort Lauderdale via Dallas. The route usually goes over the Gulf, coming over land just west of New Orleans, but I suspect that we'll be flying a lot further to the south.

[Almost 11 AM]

Winds are now at 175 mph, with gusts well over two hundred. A lot of people are going to die, because they started the evacuation too late.

New Orleans is one of those places where you form images in your head of what it is like and then when you get there, it's very disappointing--like the moon.

I had some of the best seafood of my life there (Mike Anderson's Seafood Restaurant). But the French Quarter was pretty ugly.

For starters, it smells. Stale beer and urine smell very similar, and as you walk down the streets, that is what it smells like. That's not that surprising as the streets are littered with plastic beer cups and there are few places to go to the bathroom, so people urinate in the alleys and behind trash bins. The trash is everywhere, and it is not much better in the daytime.

Bourbon Street itself is lined with strip clubs (they have women dancing in front of opaque windows) and tourist trap stores. Maybe a dozen or more stores selling offensive tee-shirts or little stuffed aligators. The place is popular with bikers and their skanky old ladies.

Pedestrian traffic down the streets occasionally comes to a halt as crowds of men ogle women who occasionally flash their breasts for plastic necklaces. This is surprisingly uninteresting.

There is good music, but often you can only find it in over-crowded stuffy bars where it is impossible to get to the bathroom. The food can be great, but you will pay a lot for it.

And have I mentioned the humidity?

Summary? The city deserves to be wiped off the map.

The Times-Picayune (www.nola.com) has decent coverage so far, including some nice graphic representations of the results of previous studies of projected flood damage from this kind of storm. (Their home page seems to be in a state of design flux as the storm approaches, but I trust the links are in there someplace.)

There are also some webcams in there, as long as the power lasts.

Not all of New Orleans metro area is below sea level, but a lot of it is and stands to be underwater, a lot of water. Remember, the levees that keep water out will keep it in if they are breached. I've seen reports that it might take 6-8 weeks to remove the water and restore power.

I was going to chime in on the French Quarter, too, but Joe pretty well summed up my own opinion.

Note that the FQ has been flooded many times (May 3, 1978, for instance), and will probably survive in repairable shape if the wind damage isn't too severe. With any luck, you'll be able to see the place in a few months with a fresh coat of paint and with the nasty "used beer" smell flushed away.

I'd be more concerned about flooding and wind damage in the blighted neighborhoods surrounding downtown -- hundred-plus-year-old frame buildings, in various states of neglect or dilapidation, with who knows what kind of rot and termite damage hidden within. If a cat 5 gets anywhere near them, there's going to be a whole lot of property destruction.

I'll be curious to see what happens to Michoud and Stennis.

I spent my Birthday down in New Orleans and Baton Rouge in May. It was a wonderful place, both for partying all night in the French Quarter and messing around on air boats in the aligator-infested swamps. Once the air boat motors are off, the swamp is an unbelievably quiet and tranquil place, and the afternoon we were there all you could hear was the faint rumble of a thunderstorm in the distance.

Much of the freeway between New Orleans and Baton Rouge is raised up over the swamps. Baton Rouge is pretty much the first solid land you get to as you go inland. CNN is reporting the storm surge is up to _25 feet_ and will likely overwhelm the levy system that protects New Orleans, which is 6 feet below sea level. This is now Category 5 storm with sustained winds of nearly 175 mph headed for New Orleans.

It gives me a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I worry for my friends over there and hope they are safe in a shelter.

BTW the Nexrad radar and storm cell tracking system is a good tool to know. I once watched a tornado develop in realtime on it:

>>"A lot of people are going to die, because they started the evacuation too late."

Apparently, some of the evacuation routes are below sea level. Not a good place to be stuck in traffic when the flood hits.

Athelli's "deserved to be wiped off the map" comment is loathsome. Maybe he's Falwell or Robertson posting in disguise.

Note that the FQ has been flooded many times (May 3, 1978, for instance), and will probably survive in repairable shape if the wind damage isn't too severe. With any luck, you'll be able to see the place in a few months with a fresh coat of paint and with the nasty "used beer" smell flushed away.

The flood damage could be a lot worse than the wind. The hurricane is forecast to drop a little more rain (more than a foot as compared to ten inches) as that 1978 storm, and there's appears to be a fair chance it'll overwhelm the levee system on top of that. If the latter happens, then IMHO most buildings below sea level will probably be destroyed by a nasty combo of wave/wind action.

The eye is now visible on the Slidell long range radar.

There are some heavy bands of rain coming ashore right now.

"Athelli's "deserved to be wiped off the map" comment is loathsome. Maybe he's Falwell or Robertson posting in disguise."

You don't have to be religious to think that the place is a sewer. Or do atheists find piss-filled streets to be attractive?

Besides, I'm a taxpayer. I am going to get stuck with the bill for repairing a place that was intended to be underwater in the first place.

The radar has been detecting a number of tornado vortex signatures moving inland.

The present sequence has 2 in the past half hour, and there were others before that.

Rand, could you edit the URL in Kevin Parkin's 2:13 p.m. comment from yesterday? It makes the permalink page twice as wide as my high-rez monitor. Kind of hard to read the other comments...

Well, looks like the hurricane took out the radar.

There is a message saying "radar down for maintence", and the last scan it took shows a particularly intense part of the eye wall on top of its location :(

I just noticed a rather large gap in radar coverage at www.weather.gov that wasn't there before. After the New Orleans coverage is over at 5 or 6pm today, I'm waiting for the newsies to point out the compounded flooding potential as TS Katrina moves up along the Mississippi River system and tributaries.