Early this morning I posted about Hurricane Katrina being a Catagory 4….now it’s up to a Catagory 5. New Orleans, being as much as 10 feet below sea level in places, has been evacuated. Those who can’t leave the city are taking up shelter in the Superdome and high rise hotels. If the storm gets as bad as predicted, New Orleans could be flooded.
My thoughts are with the people left in the city and all those in surrounding areas that could get hit by the hurricane. Stay safe.

NEW ORLEANS - Monstrous Hurricane Katrina barreled toward the Big Easy on Sunday with 165-mph wind and a threat of a 28-foot storm surge, forcing a mandatory evacuation, a last-ditch Superdome shelter and prayers for those left to face the doomsday scenario this below-sea-level city has long dreaded.

“Have God on your side, definitely have God on your side,” Nancy Noble said as she sat with her puppy and three friends in six lanes of one-way traffic on gridlocked Interstate 10. “It’s very frightening.”

Katrina intensified into a Category 5 giant over the warm water of the Gulf of Mexico on a path to make landfall at sunrise Monday in the heart of New Orleans. That would make it the city’s first direct hit in 40 years and the most powerful storm ever to slam the city. It eased slightly during the day, with top sustained wind down from 175 mph, but forecasters said fluctuations were likely.

But forecasters warned that Mississippi was also in danger because Katrina was such a big storm — with hurricane-force winds extending up to 105 miles from the center — that even areas far from the landfall could be devastated.

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Traffic along highway 90 leaving Morgan City, La.
(AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Hurricane season is in full swing in the Atlantic. Katrina started out as a Catagory 1 on Thursday when it hit southern Florida. It has since been upgraded to a Catagory 4 when it passed over the Gulf of Mexico early today.

NEW ORLEANS - Coastal residents jammed freeways and gas stations as they rushed to get out of the way of Hurricane Katrina, which grew into a dangerous Category 4 storm early Sunday as it headed for New Orleans and the Louisiana coast.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a test. This is the real deal,” New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin said at a news conference. “Board up your homes, make sure you have enough medicine, make sure the car has enough gas. Do all things you normally do for a hurricane but treat this one differently because it is pointed towards New Orleans.”

Katrina gained strength overnight, become a Category 4 monster with 145 mph sustained winds as it moved over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico early Sunday.

The storm formed in the Bahamas and ripped across South Florida on Thursday, causing nine deaths, before moving into the Gulf of Mexico.

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Katrina on Friday - AP Photo