It is going to be a long night for the poor folks in southeastern Louisiana and southern Mississippi as extremely dangerous Hurricane Katrina moves across the area. The city of Houma is in Terrebonne Parish. It is very close to the Gulf of Mexico, separated from the Gulf of Mexico by only a few miles of marshland. I operate a Hampton Inn hotel there. Brazette Carlos and her team are a brave group of folks that are staying in the hotel tonight along some media folks and government officials. The hotel has never experienced a direct hit from a major hurricane. What a nerve wracking experience that will be for them.

As we commented last night, there are some similarities between Camille and Katrina. Both are powerful, steady-state hurricanes that maintained deep intensities for an extended period of time with little change. It appears that both hurricanes will strike generally the same area. Katrina will be moving north when it reaches the area just west of the Pearl River at the Mississippi/Louisiana border. The storms had nearly identical central pressures, but they still are very different. Camille was a very tight and small storm. Camille’s eye was only about five miles in diameter. It was a tightly wound storm. Katrina has had a 25-30 mile wide eye and a much larger wind field. Even though their central pressures have been very similar, Camille had much higher maximum sustained winds.

J.B. Elliott says he was on vacation on that fateful night in August 1969. He remembers listening to WWL radio in New Orleans to get information on the storm, just like people all over the country are doing tonight.

Walter Maestri, the Emergency Director for Jefferson Parish said on WWL last night that the center of Hurricane Katrina passing directly over the city of New Orleans was actually a blessing. He said that if the hurricane had passed 15-20 miles to the west, things would have been much worse. Hopefully, there will be no major changes overnight.

Pressure still very, very low... at 908 mb. Flight level winds are down to 122 knots, or 140 mph. NHC will probably lower wind speed in the next advisory... probably dropping Katrina to category four level. This is still a very, very dangerous storm.

000
URNT12 KNHC 290307
VORTEX DATA MESSAGE
A. 29/02:36:10Z
B. 27 deg 34 min N
089 deg 25 min W
C. 700 mb 2289 m
D. NA kt
E. NA deg 000 nm
F. 035 deg 122 kt
G. 306 deg 015 nm
H. 908 mb
I. 13 C/ 3018 m
J. 25 C/ 3022 m
K. 17 C/ NA
L. CLOSED WALL
M. C30
N. 12345/ 7
O. 0.03 / 2 nm
P. AF305 2012A KATRINA OB 04
MAX FL WIND 122 KT NW QUAD 02:31:40 Z

David Black has put together an excellent audio update on Katrina over on our podcast site:

http://www.jamesspann.com/bmachine/podcast.php

You can play the file directly from the web if you want, or download for use on a portable MP3 player.

Fresh information from the National Hurricane Center tonight. Main points:

* Sustained winds now 160 mph
* Still moving NW
* At landfall, projected to be at the high end of a Category 4
* Overall track forecast will show little or no change.
* However, at 36 hours a bit more eastward placing it in NW Alabama
* Hurricane eye now easily seen on New Orleans Radar

ALABAMA
No real changes from earlier posts. Tornado Watch continues for South part of the state. Several spiral bands have moved inland. At one time, tornado warning were issued for Mobile and Baldwin County tonight. A big storm surge expected along the Alabama Coast. Forecast on that unchanged. Could be 20 feet in upper part of Mobile Bay. In Central Alabama, including Anniston-Birmingham-Tuscaloosa, worst weather will be from Monday afternoon into Tuesday. Not as bad east of I-65, worse west of I-65. On west side of the state, including places like Livingston, Demopolis, Moundville, Tuscaloosa, Fayette (to name a few) could get as much as 3 to 6 inches of rain. Whole state will be on "bad side" of hurricane so there will be a risk of spinoff tornadoes.

LATE SPOT REPORTS
New Orleans International Airport...cloudy, wind NE 31, gusts to 39
New Orleans Lakefront Airport...light rain, wind NE 37, gusts to 45
Baton Rouge...light rain, wind NE 12
Gulfport and Biloxi...light rain, wind NE 24
Brookley Field, near Downtown Mobile...light rain, wind NE 20, gusts 25.

Prayers...many prayers are in order for all the folks in New Orleans tonight. In 40+ years of weather work, I have never seen anything this scary...

From the Associated Press wire here at ABC 33/40...

When Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans on Monday, it could turn one of America's most charming cities into a vast cesspool tainted with toxic chemicals, human waste and even coffins released by floodwaters from the city's legendary cemeteries.

Experts have warned for years that the levees and pumps that usually keep New Orleans dry have no chance against a direct hit by a Category 5 storm.

That's exactly what Katrina was as it churned toward the city. With top winds of 165 mph and the power to lift sea level by as much as 28 feet above normal, the storm threatened an environmental disaster of biblical proportions, one that could leave more than 1 million people homeless.

"All indications are that this is absolutely worst-case scenario," Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, said Sunday afternoon.

The center's latest computer simulations indicate that by Tuesday, vast swaths of New Orleans could be under water up to 30 feet deep. In the French Quarter, the water could reach 20 feet, easily submerging the district's iconic cast-iron balconies and bars.

Estimates predict that 60 percent to 80 percent of the city's houses will be destroyed by wind. With the flood damage, most of the people who live in and around New Orleans could be homeless.

"We're talking about in essence having _ in the continental United States _ having a refugee camp of a million people," van Heerden said.

Aside from Hurricane Andrew, which struck Miami in 1992, forecasters have no experience with Category 5 hurricanes hitting densely populated areas.

"Hurricanes rarely sustain such extreme winds for much time. However we see no obvious large-scale effects to cause a substantial weakening the system and it is expected that the hurricane will be of Category 4 or 5 intensity when it reaches the coast," National Hurricane Center meteorologist Richard Pasch said.

As they raced to put meteorological instruments in Katrina's path Sunday, wind engineers had little idea what their equipment would record.

"We haven't seen something this big since we started the program," said Kurt Gurley, a University of Florida engineering professor. He works for the Florida Coastal Monitoring Program, which is in its seventh year of making detailed measurements of hurricane wind conditions using a set of mobile weather stations.

Experts have warned about New Orleans' vulnerability for years, chiefly because Louisiana has lost more than a million acres of coastal wetlands in the past seven decades. The vast patchwork of swamps and bayous south of the city serves as a buffer, partially absorbing the surge of water that a hurricane pushes ashore.

Experts have also warned that the ring of high levees around New Orleans, designed to protect the city from floodwaters coming down the Mississippi, will only make things worse in a powerful hurricane. Katrina is expected to push a 28-foot storm surge against the levees. Even if they hold, water will pour over their tops and begin filling the city as if it were a sinking canoe.

After the storm passes, the water will have nowhere to go.

In a few days, van Heerden predicts, emergency management officials are going to be wondering how to handle a giant stagnant pond contaminated with building debris, coffins, sewage and other hazardous materials.

"We're talking about an incredible environmental disaster," van Heerden said.

He puts much of the blame for New Orleans' dire situation on the very levee system that is designed to protect southern Louisiana from Mississippi River floods.

Before the levees were built, the river would top its banks during floods and wash through a maze of bayous and swamps, dropping fine- grained silt that nourished plants and kept the land just above sea level.

The levees "have literally starved our wetlands to death" by directing all of that precious silt out into the Gulf of Mexico, van Heerden said.

It has been 40 years since New Orleans faced a hurricane even comparable to Katrina. In 1965, Hurricane Betsy, a Category 3 storm, submerged some parts of the city to a depth of seven feet.

Since then, the Big Easy has had nothing but near misses. In 1998, Hurricane Georges headed straight for New Orleans, then swerved at the last minute to strike Mississippi and Alabama. Hurricane Lili blew herself out at the mouth of the Mississippi in 2002. And last year's Hurricane Ivan obligingly curved to the east as it came ashore, barely grazing a grateful city.

Our first TV special begins at 8:00 p.m. on Comcast Cable Channel 16 in Tuscaloosa, and our digital channels 33.2 and 40.2. We will feature live coverage from our meteorologists here in the Weather Center, our crew in Gulf Shores and local EMA officials. We will take your questions at this address:

hurricane@abc3340.com

We will answer as many questions as possible during the special.

This one hour program is specially designed for our viewers in west Alabama, where the most Katrina will bring a serious threat of widespread tree damage and power outages.

On our main ABC 33/40 signal, we will have a one hour special version of ABC 33/40 News at 10:00 with complete coverage of Katrina.

Long form coverage begins tomorrow morning at 5:00 a.m.

We hope to stream our coverage tomorrow...

These observations were made at 7 pm, CDT:

Brookley Field, Mobile...wind NE 17
Biloxi...Light rain...wind NE 15, gusts 24
Gulfport...light rain, wind NE 12, gusts 24
Baton Rouge...light rain, east 23, gusts 31
New Orleans International...light rain, NE 17, gusts 26
Dauphin Island (Alabama)...east 34, gusts 38, water temperature 87 (very warm)
Mobile South Buoy #42040...east 40, gusts 47, 28 foot waves

Good feeder band in the Gulf Shores are where we are at 7:20 p.m. We saw strong winds gusting to arprximately 40 mph. One interesting feature is the lightning. Brian Peters reports that he has never seen this much electrical activity with a tropical system. A tornado warning is in effect for Baldwin County and Mobile County until 7:40 p.m. A tornado watch is in effect for South Alabama until 2 a.m.

Curfews are now in effect in most Southeast Louisiana Parishes and the coastal counties of Mississippi.

Cars are still stuck in gridlock on I-10 east. People are running our of fuel. But all in all, reports indicate the traffic is easing up now in Southeast Lousiana and Mississippi.

High tide in Hancock County, Mississippi is around sunrise. It will be near astronomical low tide when the main hurricane surge arrives.

More soon....

KATRINA STEADILY MOVING TOWARD COAST...
STILL CATEGORY FIVE HURRICANE...
CENTER LESS THAN 15 HOURS FROM CITY...
BASIC TRACK UNCHANGED...

FAST FACTS ON KATRINA AS OF 7 PM CDT...
LOCATION....Latitude 27.2N Longitude 89.1W or about 120 miles S of the Mouth of the Mississippi River
MOVEMENT: NNW 11 mph
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS: 160 mph (Category 5)
CENTRAL PRESSURE: 904 millibars... 26.69 inches

Since so many people are reading this blog for the first time this evening, let me run through some important information:

*We will air a prime time special tonight from 8:00 until 9:00 on Comcast Cable Channel 16 in Tuscaloosa tonight. This will also be on our digital channels 33.2 and 40.2 if you have a digital TV receiver.

*We will have coverage on our main ABC 33/40 signal tonight at 10:00 on a special hour long newscast. Long form coverage begins again tomorrow at 5:00 a.m. on ABC 33/40.

*This is a storm of historic proportion. Scroll down for details on Katrina... but the bottom line is that this a category five hurricane, much stronger than Ivan, Opal, and Frederic. This is now the Gulf of Mexico hurricane of record. The wind field is large; hurricane force winds extend out 105 miles from the center; tropical storm force wind extend out 230 miles.

*The worst weather in north and central Alabama will come from about 3:00 Monday afternoon through 12 noon on Tuesday.

*ALL of Alabama will have a risk of tornadoes in spiral bands around Katrina.

*The greatest risk of widespread tree and powerline damage in Alabama is along and west of U.S. 43, or over Marengo, Sumter, Tuscaloosa, Pickens, Fayette, Lamar, and Marion counties in the ABC 33/40 viewing area. Winds in these counties will peak in the 50 to 70 mph range, possibly higher near the Mississippi line. Rain amounts of 5 to 8 inches are likely. Alabama Power says there should be extended power outages in this area.

*WE RECOMMEND EVERYONE ALONG AND WEST OF U.S. 43 IN MOBILE HOMES TO ABANDON THEM AND BE IN A MORE SUBSTANTIAL STRUCTURE BY 3:00 p.m. TOMORROW. These are the same counties mentioned in the above paragraph.

*BIRMINGHAM METRO and the I-65 corridor... Wind gusts from 40 to 50 mph, 3 to 6 inches of rain. Some tree damage is likely, but not as widespread as west Alabama.

ANNISTON/GADSDEN AND EAST ALABAMA: Wind gusts from 20 to 40 mph, and 2 to 5 inches of rain.

An inland tropical storm warning is in effect for areas along and west of I-65.

Stay tuned for frequent updates here...