Déjà vu for Louisiana?

In 2005 when Katrina hit land it was a category 3 (down from a 5) hurricane. On Monday, now tropical storm Gustav is expected to make landfall as a category 3 hurricane. I wonder how secure their levees are now... It wouldn't hurt to say a prayer for all those who live on the gulf coast.

C wrote:In 2005 when Katrina hit land it was a category 3 (down from a 5) hurricane. On Monday, now tropical storm Gustav is expected to make landfall as a category 3 hurricane. I wonder how secure their levees are now... It wouldn't hurt to say a prayer for all those who live on the gulf coast.

And Gustav seems to be on exactly the same track. I surely hope that FEMA is prepared this time.

I have an acquaintance down in the New Orleans area, and he provided an update:

The good news is that all the agencies, from local to Federal seem to have it together this time. FEMA is already here and buses, trains and airplanes are lined up to take those w/o transporation out of the region. We have a staggered evacuation plan for those with their own cars, which empties areas south of New Orleans first. This was in place for Katrina too, and worked well. Its objective is to prevent those people from getting gridlocked into the low lying areas that they live in. The list of changes since Katrina is long, but suffice it to say that most of the problem areas have been addressed.

The one remaining problem is that we still have many weaknesses in the levee system. If this storm doesn't build up significantly, however, I think we will be OK. So far, Gustav is a small storm in terms of width. That is a big difference in comparison to Katrina and Rita (hit La. a month after Katrina), both of which were huge storms. Rita hot Lake Charles, 225 miles west of New Orleans, and we actually had areas that reflooded. My town actually came closer to flooding from Rita than it did from Katrina

Please keep those people in your thoughts and prayers.