If anybody fron New Orleans is evacuating, please try LA 30 when you hit Gonzales. It will save you a good 6 hours if Ivan last year was any indication. I commute to BR for work from there. I gave 30 a shot and nobody was using it. It took me 40 minutes to do what it was taking people on I-10 or airline highway 6 hours.
That could probably be worse as big and strong as she is.
Latest track has New Orleans in Katrina's cross-hairs
Blanco declares state of emergency as Katrina shifts west
The latest forecast track for Hurricane Katrina - issued at 10 p.m. CDT - has the strengthening storm crossing lower Plaquemines on a beeline across the New Orleans metro area.
Earlier Friday, Gov. Kathleen Blanco declared a state of emergency as a major shift west in the projected track of Hurricane Katrina threatens Southeastern Louisiana.
Katrina, the 11th named storm of a busy season, was upgraded to Category 2 as it moved deeper into the Gulf of Mexico on Friday afternoon, after crossing Florida yesterday. Forecasters say the storm should strengthen to Category 3 by Saturday, and could strengthen into a Category 4, or even Category 5 according to some models, by landfall Monday.
Blanco declared a state of emergency earlier Friday after the 5 p.m. forecast called for landfall in the Biloxi area, ordering the state's disaster preparedness offices to start taking precautions, saying Katrina posed an "imminent threat." Meanwhile, emergency preparedness officers in southern Louisiana were mobilizing on their own.
"We were looking at it going up the East Coast two days ago and now it's looking like it will hit the central Gulf Coast," said Larry Ingargiola, director of the St. Bernard Parish Emergency Preparedness. "Like we always say, the only one who knows where a storm will go is the man upstairs."
More worrisome was that experts with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned that the hurricane's track could move even further west, Ingargiola said.
"We just hope our people are prepared," he said. "It's kind of late in the year to be making disaster plans."
William Maestri, the emergency director for Jefferson Parish, said he was concerned about the movement west and how it was intensifying.
New Orleans City Hall spokeswoman Tami Frazier said officials were watching the storm, and had activated what she called the lowest alert level — monitoring storm movements
Much of the seven hours Katrina spent over land Thursday was over the moist Florida Everglades, allowing for only slight weakening.
Katrina toppled trees, whipped up the surf and left more than a million customers without power as it slammed into Florida's densely populated southeastern coast Thursday with driving rains and sustained winds of 80 mph, with gusts over 90. Two people were killed by falling trees.
http://www.nola.com