Crash On The Levee (Down In The Flood)
Hurricane Katrina has now strengthened to an extremely powerful category 5 storm with 175 mph winds, making it one of the strongest storms ever to threaten landfall on the United States. The storm's pressure of 907 millibars is lower than any storm other than the 1935 "Labor Day" hurricane that devastated Florida (though that storm was considerably smaller and more compact than Katrina). The only really comparable hurricane is Hurricane Camille, which caused massive damage to the Gulf Coast back in 1969. Check out post-Camille photos here, and note how the satellite images of that storm correspond to those of Katrina.
Models are predicting the storm to track almost directly over New Orleans, a city that is located below sea level and which keeps the waters at bay only by a system of pumps and levees. A direct hit from a category 5 storm could potentially flood the entire city, in addition to the severe wind damage that can be expected from such a storm. Stormtrack has a discussion of potential damage here - this sounds downright scary. Probably a good idea to pack up your suitcase if you're a New Orleans resident - this could be the meanest flood anybody's ever seen.
(Note: Hurricane Gilbert, which struck the Yucatan in 1988, had the lowest recorded pressure of any system in the Atlantic Basin, with 888 mb, but the above link only refers to hurricanes that made landfall in the U.S. Some typhoons in the Pacific have had even lower barometric pressure.)
