Looks like the storm weakened enough, and/or shifted enough, that things never got bad enough to breach/top the levees on Lake Ponchartrain. I think that was the key to the whole "doomsday scenario", having the lake emptied out to the south by the failure or topping of the levee(s) there. The graphic I saw on one of the earlier threads yesterday seemed to indicate the absolute worst-case was an eye passing just to the east of NO (closer than Katrina), and having the winds literally push water around the front 180 degrees of the storm from the sea, across the bayous, into Lake Ponchartrain, and then south over the levees into New Orleans.
And while central NO didn't get the "doomsday scenario", right now, there's a lot of places that did. This storm looks like it will eclipse Andrew as costliest US natural disaster ever.
}:-)4
Concur, I think much remains to be discovered about the wider effects so far.
I think I'd be slow, also, to assume that we've seen everything so far. Lake Ponchartrain is still rising, presumably from runoff upstate, and I assume that the mississippi will rise as the upstate rain finds its way downhill as well.