The worst of the weather is not in the center of the hurricane. If I remember right it's the right side of the storm in relation to the direction of the storm path. In other words, it's the east side of the storm as it's heading north. The problem caused by the eye passing over is that the winds increase gradually as the storm approaches and stop suddenly as the eye passes over. It's when the eye wall hits again that the winds go from zero to 75mph+ in seconds. If the storms sustained winds are 100 and it's forward motion is 7 mph the winds go from 0 to 107 in no time and slam into everything. That's the destructive part. Then there's the tornados... No good part of a hurricane. Missing a direct hit isn't necessarily a good thing.
HOWEVER - that being said, the land will tend to slow wind somewhat, so in this case the right side of the storm (east) will have faster winds. But at these speeds, who's gonna quibble?
Correct. I was just talking with my b-i-l who is the Pastor of a Parish in Gulfport. He's not leaving town. He said before the winds get too high, he's going next door to one of the brick two story buildings. They're talking a 14 foot storm surge, but his place is behind the RR tracks and almost 20' above the water, so he should be fine. It might get kinda exciting for him, though!
The winds are the indirect problem for New Orleans, in a way. The track has her moving from south to north east of the city. This is almost the worst case.
Storm surge and wind preceding the storm force more water into Lake Ponchatrain, north of the city. Most of the wind will come from the southeast and east at first. This will drive huge amounts of water into the lake. Then the wind shifts to come out of the north. This drives the water toward the low levee on the lake side. This levee also has gaps in it. With New Orleans being a bowl, it starts to fill.
This water could have sewage, chemical contamination, all sorts of things in it. It could be a nightmare, or it could be another lucky miss.
The LSU guy who did the studies on how much the city could handle before the levee was breached speculated that the eye of a Cat 5 passing within approx. 30 miles of New Orleans would cause the catastrophic flooding. A bit more on the east side, because the rotation of the winds would drive water north and west into Lake Pontchartrain, then more to the southwest into the spillway west of the city, and the west side levee is apparently the weakest link. It also would eventually drive that water south as the wind came from the north, which might also breach the city's north shore levees.
The worst case scenario is an overtopping of the levee where not only the below sea-level bowl the city is in fills up, but storm surge and waves come in on top of that ending up above the roof of some homes. The next worst case scenario is a levee breach where the bowl fills, but not as deep. If the storm is far enough away that the levee holds against storm surge, then there could be flooding and wind damage, but not as totally devastating and nowhere near the loss of life. As long as the levees hold and aren't overtopped, the pumps should continue to work.
Hence the importance of where the eye path ends up, and why if the path shifts further east to Gulfport, it could make a huge difference.