Hurricane Katrina bears down on New Orleans

Hurricane Katrina, a Category 5 storm, is 190 miles from New Orleans and is bearing down on the city. I spent a great week in NOLA this spring and it seems incredible that a 28-foot storm surge is predicted to swamp the city. CNN reports that if the dikes break it could take six months to clean up from the storm.

A friend lives in NOLA, and while thankfully she's out of town, her house isn't, and the risk of it not being there 24 hours from now is real. A friend of hers picked up her dog and is driving out of the city. It's taken over 4 hours just to get to the airport...and the traffic is building. From what I understand, they've now pointed all roads out of New Orleans, and I hope that everyone can get out in time. (I just heard on CNN that it will take 72 hours to get 60-70% of people out of the area. Wow.)