Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our New Orleans dead.
In fair weather there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of hurricane blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Bring it onbitch!
Well, better this weekend than next…
Considering that next weekend we’re going to be IN New Orleans…
OR RATHER, WHAT’S LEFT OF IT.
Seriously, though, I was saddened to hear about the death toll in Florida. IIRC, wasn’t damage from last season limited to property?
Yeah, I read over what I wrote and thought it might sound a bit too flippant. I do hope there isn’t too much damage or injury or (Og forbid) loss of life from this. Be safe, folk of the Gulf…
No, we did have some deaths last year, about 19-20 or so. 
Here’s hoping that this is not the bullet that the city of New Orleans has been dodging all these years. Best of luck to all y’all “South o’ I-10” dopers.
One of which illustrates the principle that “Smoking Kills.” A man in a shelter had a nicotine fit and decided that he just had to go outside and have a smoke just as the Hurricane Charlie was at its worst. He was killed by a falling tree.
Also of interest is that a number of the fatalities came in the cleanup phase, from people touching downed power-lines or running their generators indoors and succumbing to carbon monoxide.
The danger ain’t over when the wind stops!
Dude, I just finished rereading Maskerade! 
All seriousness, you Southern Dopers, take care of yourselves–be safe.
Having just left New Orleans, I find myself worrying for all the friends I left behind while heaving a massive sigh of relief that if it really does turn into a nasty storm requiring evacuation, it won’t be me driving to Texas. For 24 hours or so.
Y’all stay safe and dry – and if they want you to leave and move to higher ground, do it!
Can I be the first to make a Katrina and the Waves joke?
No.
But it’d be a first in this thread.
Just stocked up on enough beer and Spaghetti-O’s to last a week. Not going to evacuate for this one seeing as I may not be able to make it back on time for school.
I’d check with the school; if this goes as it looks like I’m guessing there won’t be school for you to miss for awhile.
Hope you aren’t in New Orleans on a ground floor apartment. Katrina is nothing to laugh at. The track is now solid. It will come ashore around Grand Isle, move over N.O., then the Lake, then eastern St. Tammany. It looks like it will then head up the La. MS line toward Jackson.
On about midnight tomorrow night this is going to be a run for your lives storm.
A friend of mine in Kenner near the lake emailed me a while ago that she was shutting off preparatory to evacuating. She wanted to stay and ride it out, but her hubby vetoed her idea. While generally he’s an ass, this time I agree with him – with three dogs and several birds, if they’d stayed and ended up in a run-for-your-lives situation, she wouldn’t have wanted to leave the animals no matter what. In this case, better to be stuck on the road with a million people [shudder*] and all the critters than endanger everyones’ lives.
*The shudder is for memories of the Ivan evacuation last September, when it took us 17 hours to get from New Orleans to Lafayette. Much as I’m concerned for everyone in NOLA, I am SO glad I’m not there right now!
There will be much area flooding in New Orleans … probably on the order of the May 3rd, 1979 and May 1995 floods. Perhaps a tough higher. I think Katrina will not quite achieve “run for your lives” status. Here’s why:
The way the storm track looks now, New Orleans should catch a break. Katrina likely won’t be coming up the mouth of the Mississippi River from the southeast – which would physically push river water over the levees and wharves nearest the lowest parts of the city (which are situated on an unfortuitous kink in the river).
Katrina looks to be coming from about due south of the city. This affords about 80 miles of so of swampland that would weaken the interior of the storm by the time it nears New Orleans. Lower wind speeds would lead to lower storm surge, which would be coming in from a luckier angle anyway.
A serious danger sign now would be if Katrina quits drifting west all of a sudden, and starts making a north-westerly beeline for the mouth of the river. So far, we’re lucking out.
…
Watching whis storm with great interest from 70 miles northwest in Baton Rouge. My family and most of my wife’s family (both still in N.O.) are not willing to evacuate. We’ve all survived a ton of storms down in New Orleans growing up … hoping our lucky streak keeps going.
Power outages throughout the New Orleans area are inevitable, and they may last 2 or 3 days – maybe more. My father-in-law has a generator for his home, and he can take in my elderly grandfather-in-law. I just hope that those who would struggle without air conditioning can get to shelters, or otherwise get the help they’ll need.
We had a 7pm dinner at Ground Patti tonight. Strangly it was the only place we found open. A bit of looking around found many gas stations empty after the all day refueling lines. I bought about 50 gallons for my generator around Dennis and Cindy so at least the generator will be fueled. Lucky for us the wife and I decided to make a midnight run to the store when they showed the new track. Everything was packed today. House is boarded up and final prep will be tomorrow.
I well understand the scenarios! And you are right, coming up the river is the worst. N.O. may not flood too much. the rain models are predicting less than 10 inches. Barely a rain for around here. So while the flooding will be noticable, it hopely won’t take 2 months to pump out. 
But what worries me is the wind. Cat 3 all the way to the northshore. I don’t think that has happened before. Betsy maybe.
I am glad your family has gone through this before. It is going to be nasty around here and no place for the unprepared!
To present an alternative viewpoint, an article in the Times Picayune online this afternoon had this to say:
That’s definitely more than minor flooding; if the levees are topped, all bets are off for how long drying out might take. I know that when my husband was working at the Entergy data center on the Westbank (which is one of the only buildings in the area built to withstand at least a category 4 storm), he was told that if the Westbank levees are breached, estimates are it could take six to twelve months to drain the whole area.
And on the “spaghetti model” of possible storm trackings (available at the BoatUS website, the blue line, which was the most accurate forecast model for the past several years, shows the eye tracking just west of New Orleans, which would put the city in the area of highest wind as well.
To me, it’s just not worth taking chances on, when it’s not really all that difficult to leave town for a few days. Especially after seeing what riding out Andrew did to friends of mine in Miami; not only did they lose their home, but she stll has PTSD from it to this day.