Only time will tell, but I hope your predictions are incorrect. I have a sinking feeling though, that you are right.
"Only time will tell, but I hope your predictions [in http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1473894/posts?page=2080#2080 ] are incorrect. I have a sinking feeling though, that you are right." RushCrush
They weren't the predictions of an amatuer like me, they were the predictions of Dr. van Heerden, et.al., and the American Red Cross, themselves -- [in 2002]:
Science Daily: http://www.sciencedaily.com/
http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20050722-18422300-bc-us-hurricanes.xml
"In 2002, an American Red Cross estimate found 25,000 to 100,000 people would be killed if a major hurricane hit the New Orleans area."
Many residents won't evacuate New Orleans
NEW ORLEANS, July 22 (UPI) -- A major hurricane, with 130 mph winds and an 18-foot-high storm surge, would not scare 60 percent of southeast Louisiana residents, a survey found.
That would be a dangerous decision, said Jesse St. Amant, emergency preparedness director for Plaquemines Parish, because Louisiana's sinking coastline and levees no longer protect residents from a Category 3 storm.
The University of New Orleans Survey Research Center and the Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Task Force survey, released Thursday, also found many who evacuated during Hurricanes Georges in 1998, Lili in 2002 or last year's Ivan might not have traveled far enough to escape danger, the New Orleans Times-Picayune said Friday.
In 2002, an American Red Cross estimate found 25,000 to 100,000 people would be killed if a major hurricane hit the New Orleans area.
If people don't evacuate when directed by officials the number of casualties would be "beyond comprehension," according to St. Amant.
Related articles here:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20050722-18422300-bc-us-hurricanes.xml#
Another item of interest:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina
[HUGE SNIPS]
At 5:00 a.m. EDT (0900 UTC) on August 27, Katrina's pressure dropped to 945 mbar and it was upgraded to Category 3. The same day President Bush declared a state of emergency in Louisiana, two days before the hurricane made landfall [5].
At 12:40 a.m. CDT (0540 UTC) on August 28, Katrina was upgraded to Category 4. Later that morning, Katrina went through a period of rapid intensification, with its maximum sustained winds reaching as high as 175 mph (280 km/h) (well above the Category 5 threshold of 156 mph (250 km/h)) and a pressure of 906 mbar by 1:00 p.m. CDT. By 4:00 p.m. CDT, Katrina reached its lowest pressure reading, at 902 mbar. This made Katrina the fourth most intense hurricane on record in the Atlantic basin, surpassing such Category 5 storms as Hurricane Ivan of 2004, Hurricane Mitch of 1998, and Hurricane Camille, the legendary hurricane that made landfall on the Mississippi coast in 1969. Katrina, however, encountered wind shear and drier air from a trough approaching from the west just before landfall, sparing the coast from a Category 5 hurricane. Nonetheless, the system made landfall as a strong Category 4 hurricane on 5:30 a.m. CDT (1030 UTC) August 29 at the mouth of the Mississippi with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph. Its lowest minimum pressure at landfall was 915 mb, making it the third strongest hurricane on record to make landfall on the United States.
[picture snipped] Click to see it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina
Eye of Hurricane Katrina seen from a NOAA Hurricane Hunter aircraft. Image taken on August 28, 2005, before the storm made landfall.
A 15- to 30-foot storm surge came ashore on virtually the entire coastline from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama to Florida. The 30-foot storm surge recorded at Biloxi, Mississippi is the highest ever observed in North America.
bttt