I'm watching CNN at the moment too. The local FOX station is carrying CNN.
It appears that the storm hit at Grand Isle / Port Fourchon as a Category 2. Cat 2s are not devastating. The winds don't take a a part buildings for example as easily as a Cat 3 can.
http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/myfox/pa...Y&pageId=3.2.1
Hurricane Gustav Hits Louisiana Coast as Category 2 Storm
FOX 5's Super Tracker
FEMA.gov
By: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Quote:
NEW ORLEANS (MyFOX Atlanta) -- Hurricane Gustav charged toward the largely deserted coast of Louisiana Monday morning and made landfall west of a city still recovering three years after Katrina's devastating blow.
Cartons of food, water, blankets and other supplies to sustain 1 million people for three days were ready to be distributed Monday as FEMA anxiously eyed Louisiana levees to gauge how much damage Hurricane Gustav would wreak.
Flood barriers in and around New Orleans, which was devastated in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina, were expected to hold this time, Federal Emergency Management Agency Deputy Director Harvey E. Johnson said. But the storm's surge could over top levees and at least partially flood the city, he said.
Damage from Gustav "will be a catastrophe by the time you add it all up," Johnson said in an interview with The Associated Press a few hours before landfall, but not as bad as Katrina.
"We're expecting levees to hold. We're expecting that that people are much, much more prepared," he said. "We don't expect the loss of life, certainly, that we saw in Katrina. But we are expecting a lot of homes to be damaged, a lot of infrastructure to be flooded, and damaged severely."
Gustav was downgraded to a Category 2 storm by mid-Monday morning. Katrina was a Category 3 storm when it hit the Gulf Coast three years ago, obliterating 90,000 square miles and costing billions of dollars in damages.
Although all the levees have been strengthened since Katrina, the Corps of Engineers has not completed its plans to prevent or ease flooding in New Orleans, Johnson said.
"There's no doubt there'll be water that'll accumulate inside New Orleans," he said. "But we just have to watch that, and understand it and not overreact, and gauge how well those levees are holding."
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