If Katrinas Effects on New Orleans were minimal.....

[facemane]

The answer to the poll is yes. The losses of the Casino and related
industries on the Ms. coast would still have Katrina surpassing
Andrew. Derrick is also correct,had it hit farther east, the complete
destruction of Mobile and beachfront properties to it's east would
have to be figured into the monetary damages.

[Lindaloo]

The answer to the poll is yes. The losses of the Casino and related
industries on the Ms. coast would still have Katrina surpassing
Andrew. Derrick is also correct,had it hit farther east, the complete
destruction of Mobile and beachfront properties to it's east would
have to be figured into the monetary damages.

The waterfront in Mobile was devastated. Dauphin Island was wiped out as was Bayou La Batre, Alabama.

[Derek Ortt]

what I meant was instead of just the waster front, all of Mobile would have been devastated

[f5]

if i were in a surge prone area a Katrina type storm would have me worried day and night

[DoctorHurricane2003]

Derek is right, Mobile Bay acts like a funnel for all the water...that is why we saw such high surges in Downtown even though Katrina was well west of there

Some of the highest potential storm surge values along the gulf coast lie at the tip of Mobile Bay.

[TS Zack]

Katrina is the big one until another one comes along and does worse.

I highly doubt a storm could come and take out everything in Louisiana. Going to the West probably wouldn't have broken the Ms River Levee because at some point the winds turned around and the angle wasn't the Up the Mouth Scenario.

It could have been worse but a storm could always be worse, you try to find the good out of a bad situation. In this case, it is the Westbank/River Parishes. I hope this was the Big One, I couldn't picture what worse would be.

I went to Christmas In The Oaks last nigth at City Park and drove down Canal. There is no more Orleans Parish, almost every home has to be gutted or torn down. The best part of town is the French Quarter. City Park is pitch dark unless you are around the Botanical Gardens where they tried their best in lighting with no plants.

[f5]

LSU has studied this for yrs the absolute worst case scenario for NO would be for a CAT 5 coming up the river from a SE or ESE direction.Katrina was about to do that exact scenario but thank god it didn't or otherwise it would of been a nightmere beyond anyone imagination with 10s of thousands dead

[MGC]

Yes, this was the big one for New Orleans. Sure, it could have been worst but Katrina did enough to qualify as "the big one." How could it have been worst? Katrina track 30 miles futher west and the wind not die off as much as they did. Put Katrina's 35 foot surge up Barataria Bay instead of the Mississippi Coast and see the damage that would have come of that track. Mississippi would have still gotten a 20 foot surge from that track. Any place you put Katrina it is still a mega disaster. The 150 mile wide storm surge did way more damage than isolated Cat-5 or Cat-4 winds....MGC

[StrongWind]

I think we can all safely call Katrina "the big one" for NO, a storm of that magnitude will only affect the city once in our lifetime, probably once every couple hundred years. A direct Cat 5 hit on NO is one of the more unlikely things to happen in the next century, barring significant climate change or other unforseen occurances, now that we have experienced such a close call.

Sounds like a gambler's statement. What happens this year has no bearing on the probability of what happens next year. Same as with a coin toss - getting heads doesn't mean you're more likely to get tails next time. One could even argue that the recent rash of strong GOM storms portends an increased likelyhood of such a hit.

[f5]

Katrina was a wakeup call .Fix the levees PROPERLY or else.there won't be a NO including Burbon st which was spared all the catastrophic flooding other parts of the city experienced