[jveritas]

Enjoy your pessimism. Do you know that the media and some of the guys here have been talking about Katrina as the worst storm ever to hit the US? Now since some have been already proving wrong they want to overexxagerate every problem to save the face. I am not saying that there is no damage and no loss in life that have already occurred and will occur in the next 24 hours, but for sure it is no way near the apocalyptic scenario the media and the so called "experts" have been predicting in the last 48 hours.

Take a knee and thank our Lord that He lessened the fury of this storm.

[bwteim]

It's probably been said before, but the meteorologists are in a dam*ned if the do, and a dam*ned if they don't, aren't they? Suppose the eye went west of NO, hammered the city, and they had not evacuated. Then we'd be bit*hing because we didn't take it seriously. If my house got hit and flattened, I'd appreciate having been given a heads up to move out earlier.

Where I agree with you is that the danger with what may be "hype" is that it lessens the chance that people will evacuate in the future.

[Diddle E. Squat]

You are the one who is overhyping and exaggerating, in this case as to how it was reported. While indeed there were a few excesses, for the most part the reports stated that this was approaching as 1 of the most powerful, not THE most powerful, since it had reached the 4th lowest pressure reading of an Atlantic Basin hurricane, which is a fact. The NHC said that they couldn't count on it weakening much before landfall, but also routinely stated that estimating intensity is very difficult for them, much less precise than forecast track. And in fact Gulfport has received 22' storm surge, which is pretty darn high.

Enough wasting time on this silly carping.