Anyone here live in New Orleans?
 

If you're still there, you should leave. Katrina is no joke. The hurricane will generate a storm surge that will do the sort of damage that a large tsunami could do, including flooding several hundred meters inland & pulling everything in its path back out to sea. Plus, the wind speed along the walls will be extremely dangerous, as will lightning & tornadoes -- additional problems of hurricanes.

I dont live there, but it's very thoughtful of you to bring this up. And I totally echo your sentiments!!

I'm about five hours northwest of New Orleans. I've seen news on tv all day showing how backed up I-10 westbound is and around 9 tonight they contraflowed all interstates going out of New Orleans -- east, west, and north. I-10 at Baton Rouge and Lafayette are backed up for miles; I-10 hits I-49 at Lafayette and one of the first shelters is about an hour away from where I live. If there aren't masses of people already here, they will be by daybreak.

A lot of people are taking state highways out of town too -- somebody was interviewed earlier saying that hwy 190 westbound traffic was like leaving an LSU football game. I live about five minutes away from a state highway and at night I can hear the cars go by if I listen for them, but tonight when I went outside all I was hearing was this constant roar of vehicles and semis. There's a lot of movement going on in this state right now.

People in New Orleans are pretty familiar with the major hurricane drill -- when Dennis went up to Gulf Shores, most of New Orleans boarded up and took a mini vacation. I believe they contraflowed I-10 westbound then, too. We had a lot of visitors around here; as soon as the possibility of New Orleans as a target was announced, every hotel within 50 miles was booked.

Here's hoping Katrina doesn't do nearly as much damage as they think she might. :distress:

I echo what you just said. Here's a prayer from Minnesota for anyone that might be in the hurricanes path :angel: