Echoes of Camille

Category 5 hurricane, Katrina, barrelling toward New Orleans packing 165 mph winds and a potential 28 feet storm surge.

Mandatory evacuations, traffic gridlock, fearful residents, Super Dome shelter, inadequate levees, oil refinery production curtailed, 15 inches of rain expected.

New Orleans is six feet below sea level.

Potentially extreme flooding could "turn New Orleans into a 30-foot-deep toxic lake filled with chemicals and petroleum from refineries, and waste from ruined septic systems".

Katrina had a central pressure -- a measure of a storm's intensity -- of 902 millibars, which would make it one of the four strongest storms on record.

Rough days ahead for the Big Easy.
--LynZee

Instapundit has a roundup.

Update: Catastrophe Looms.