"With powerful and strengthening Hurricane Katrina headed straight for his city, the mayor of New Orleans today ordered the mandatory evacuation of residents. The Category 5 storm has maximum sustained winds near 175 mph and has already been blamed for nine deaths in South Florida. Looking ahead, Max Mayfield of the National Hurricane Center said: "It has the potential for a large loss of life.""*
""There will be extensive to potentially catastrophic damage to many structures ... and inland," he said. "We'll have a lot of trees that are going to come down, perhaps millions of trees. But the first threat is going to be the storm surge. You must get away from the coast now."
By 8:30 a.m. ET (Sunday), the first bands of rain were falling over southeastern Louisiana.
CNN meteorologist Brad Huffines said the Katrina would come ashore "sometime between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m." Monday.
"The news doesn't get good, unfortunately," he said. "These rain showers will slow down the evacuation process, and that means you need to hit the road quickly, very quickly.""
"Governors of both Louisiana and Mississippi declared emergencies Friday in anticipation of the strengthening storm.
Robert Latham, director of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, said the state was recommending evacuations along the coast "and even several counties inland." Mandatory evacuations could follow later, he said.
Category 5 is the highest category on the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity. Only three Category 5 hurricanes have made landfall in the United States since records were kept. Those were the Labor Day hurricane of 1935, 1969's Hurricane Camille and Hurricane Andrew, which devastated the Miami area in 1992. Andrew remains the costliest U.S. hurricane on record, with $26.5 billion in losses.
Camille came ashore in Mississippi and killed 256 people."
"Katrina is forecast to turn to the northwest later this morning, then toward the north tonight. Well ahead of the center there will be very high surf crashing ashore in the northern Gulf starting Sunday night. You'll need to use extreme caution or JUST NOT GO IN THE WATER AT ALL along all of the northern Gulf beaches from Louisiana to western Florida due to this increased surf. Extreme damaging winds, high, life threatening storm surge, and deadly flooding rains with possible tornadoes are expected at landfall. "
(certain words capitalized by me, the mother, as a message to Tim, the dope, who (it has been reported to me) wants to go swimming in the Gulf.)
*all quotes taken from cnn or weather.com
and now, a few words from our sponsor, Emily -
•Emily's cat will never be the same (which the sponsor's mother thinks might be good) after it listens to the howling wind in the pastor's mother's garage. It is not allowed to go along with Emily and Tim.
•Emily and Tim are going to evacuate to the Navy Base in Gulfport. No civilians allowed, so I don't know who Emily is planning on coercing to get Tim into the warehouses with her and the other evacuees. (for those of you not in the know, Tim drove down to MS with E last Monday to help her move into an apartment. He was supposed to fly home tomorrow. cue hysterical laughter)
•Emily expects to call this evening (Sunday) one last time. However, the citizens are encouraged to not use their cell phones excessively, to "clear the airwaves" for other emergency communications.
•Emily expects the (electric) power to cease and desist during the night tonight.
•Emily expects the storm to last 4-12 hours. She is likely to be out of communication during this time.
•Emily expects that Tim will not cry about missing his first days of school.
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