Katrina caught alot of people by surpise

I'll be the first to admit it. When Katrina was approaching Florida I wan't too worried about it... It looked like it would make landfall North of Miami and be barely a Category 1... But then it shifted South and that's when all hell started to break loose. It quickly progressed to a Category 5 hurricane before (thankfully) lessening into a Category 4. New Orleans was lucky that the storm didn't hit 15 miles west because if it had we would be talking about a completely wiped out city. Had that happened Katrina might have been the worst natural disaster since Pompeii erupted and buried a city. As it is the coast of Mississippi has been wiped clean and New Orleans is still flooded.

Gulfport and Biloxi appear to have born the brunt of the damage. The casinos in Gulfport have, in some cases, dissappeared. The Grand broke loose and floated down the ocean and is reported as a complete loss. Debris is piled up along the coast as high as 15 feet and there are reportedly some small towns that just don't exist anymore. Highway 90 is wrecked and the Red Cross has said that this will be their largest humanitarian mobilization ever and that it compares to all of last years hurricanes occuring simultaneously.

The effects were felt far inland as well. Tornadoes created by the storm winding down were seen to the east of Atlanta and flooding has been reported in parts of Tennessee.

I suspect that we'll hear alot more in the days to come... I'm going to make a donation at www.redcross.org (as soon as the site isn't slammed by traffic) and I encourage everyone else to as well.