A She-Devil Named Katrina

The news reports just now are stunning. 182 MPH winds. Barometric readings lower than the worst storms in modern history. Cat 5 is >155, IIRC. If they had a Category 6, Katrina would be in it, heading for Cat 7. You might see "mundane" hurricane-force winds in Tennessee as Katrina goes inland.

The video of people lining up outside the Superdome is staggering; it's like you're watching a disaster movie about The Big One, except this is real footage.

There's the old joke about the mythical NYT headline-"WWIII Occurred; Poor and Minorities Hurt the Worst." That might really be true this time. While you wouldn't want to be in bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-10 bugging out of New Orleans, you really wouldn't want to be without a car stuck in town; the poor are going to be hurt worse in this one.

If Katrina holds its current course, the whole town of New Orleans will be under yards of water; first stories of buildings will be flooded and possibly rendered uninhabitable. A half-million or more folks may be without homes, making the homelessness after Andrew a walk in the park by comparison.

Pray for those folks in the Superdome and other shelters. Pray for the fools who are staying for hurricane parties, not knowing that they have a mass murderer hitting town. Pray for an epic response for relief later this week once Katrina blows through.

Mostly, pray that Katrina calms down some; Dennis cranked down from a Cat4 to a Cat3 before it hit landfall. At this point, Katrina hitting as a Cat5 rather than a Cat7 would be an improvement.