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That's not how I see (or saw as I watched this intensely) the time line...

Friday August 26th:
AT 8 PM EDT...0000Z...THE EYE OF HURRICANE KATRINA WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 24.7 NORTH... LONGITUDE 83.3 WEST OR ABOUT 100 MILES... WEST OF KEY WEST FLORIDA.(NHC report)
Strike probabilities at that time were highest from Apalachicola to Pensacola Florida with diminishing probabilities moving east. As many people, the mayor included, said: on Friday night this was a Florida storm.

It was the 11 PM EDT NHC forecast and discussion that began to center the forecast west, closer to areas around the LA/MS coast, however strike probabilities were still essentially equal from Pensacola across to NOLA.

The Saturday 5 AM advisory narrowed the prediction to the MS/LA line considerably.

Saturday 10AM CDT the NHC recommends issuing a Hurricane Watch for SE LA. However, as can be seen from the concurrent advisories, the Hurricane Watch was not converted to a Hurricane warning until 10 PM CDT Saturday night, at which time Katrina was still a CAT III Hurricane. The Strike Probabilities did not make NOLA the clear center until 4 PM Saturday.

Saturday August 27th, before the NHC issued a formal Hurricane Warning, the Mayor and Governor called for a voluntary evacuation of NOLA, suspended tolls, and put in place the Contra Flow plan.

Sunday 1 AM The NHC identifies Katrina as a Cat IV storm.

Sunday 7 AM the NHC identifies Katrina as a CAT V storm.

Sunday morning August 28th the voluntary evacuation was made mandatory, shelters were opened, and the LANG was mobilized (some orders to report had gone out the night before).

Now some want to blame the politicians for not doing more, or for not doing more sooner. Several parishes issued mandatory evacuation orders prior to Sunday, but people still chose not to listen. Sunday Night, with Katrina bearing down and the doomsday scenario looming - after the Mayor had called Katrina the storm people had feared for years - people were partying on Bourbon St and swearing at those who questioned their judgment in staying (live on FNC no less) - but, of course, it is the politicians fault that people show bad judgment. Is Haley Barbour responsible for the idiots who were surfing the storm in Gulf Shores, or is Bob Riley responsible for the same type of idiots in Orange Beach? Of course not. (Oh wait, those are Republicans, we like blaming Democrats, so lets focus on NO and LA in general.)

In the modern era we have access to unprecedented amounts of information, but what has not changed is that people remain responsible for what they do with that information. I find no malice and nothing that I would call negligence in the reactions and policies of those responsible for public safety. I see great amounts of negligence in those responsible for their own safety. There was time - the warnings were issued. Many people simply chose not to listen. So now we will help, and we will pray. And some, as always, will blame before they do anything else.

At what point should the evacuation order have been made mandatory? At a 15% strike probablity? 20%? 40%? Its not as easy as it sounds from the couch.

See it however you want; I'm not wasting time with people who are hell bent on revising the facts.

Is Haley Barbour responsible for the idiots who were surfing the storm in Gulf Shores, or is Bob Riley responsible for the same type of idiots in Orange Beach? Of course not.

That's apples and oranges. Those people had the means to leave and chose to stay. Some 100,000 people in New Orleans did not have the means to leave, and there was no emergency planning to give them a way to get out.

I find no malice and nothing that I would call negligence in the reactions and policies of those responsible for public safety. I see great amounts of negligence in those responsible for their own safety. There was time - the warnings were issued. Many people simply chose not to listen. So now we will help, and we will pray. And some, as always, will blame before they do anything else.

Amen to that. No need to blame the officials just because they're Democrats. In the end, people left who wanted to and people stayed who wanted to. And since we are America, we don't leave people to suffer the consequences of their foolish choices. We are compassionate and bail them out. It's what we do.

I personally looked at every single model track from from every single computer model the entire life of Katrina, and every single forecast track, plotted on a map.

And I have software (Stormtrakker) that allows me to basically play a "movie" of the NHC forecast track and all the model tracks over time.

The NHC forecast landfall was moved to just west of the MS/AL border at 5PM on Friday and moved to New Orleans at 11PM on Friday. That's a fact. You're flat out wrong if you believe otherwise.

And like many people you completely misunderstand the strike probability tables; they only extend out 72 hours; they are not an indication of FINAL overall probability of a landfall, just the probability the storm will be within a certain number of miles of a given point WITHIN 72 HOURS...and they're based on a standard pattern around the NHC forecast track; the strike probs aren't done by hand or anything.

Let me put this to you in a very clear way. Every State has an EOC office. They know way ahead of time, long before the media idiots spout their stupidity, they notify every County in the State, the National guard, everyone that has anything to do with the safety and welfare of it's citizens in a potential disaster is notified. There are three stages, and they are almost always in the stage three which is monitoring. They had plenty of time to mobilize and save some lives, and they blew it. You cannot possibly save everyone, especially due to the ferocity of this Storm, but another 24 hours of evacuating could have saved many lives.

Anybody who was watching the models Friday afternoon even would have known NO was in serious danger.