>>>http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/index.shtml
>>>
>>>Earl is currently 135mph, 931mb Category 4. Currently forecast to skirt the US SE coast, but the track has been adjusted slightly westward over the last few days.
>>
>>The category estimate has been increasing by the day. Usually it's the other way around, they lose steam.
>>
>>Katrina was not thought to be a particularly severe hurricane until it made landfall.
>
>No, that's not correct. It was a huge Category 5 storm, according to Wikipedia the 6th strongest Atlantic storm on record: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina
>
>At the time I posted a message here that at one point its eye was as large as Lake Okeechobee in Florida: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Katrina-noaaGOES12.jpg

And there were warnings and evacuation orders galore that were ignored, and resources that would have saved lives sat because nobody cared to do anything to help themselves.

They (including police) did help themselves after the storm passed - to shoes, TVs, sporting goods, guns, etc since nobody was around to keep order. Pretty classy to shoot at rescue crews to keep them out of your looting areas too.

Then they blamed the gub-mint (federal of course, since the local gub-mint was only good for pointing fingers) and waited for $$ and new stuff.

Watching one of the 5th anniversary newscasts the other night I thought it was pretty typical listening to people b1tch about debris and rubble that was still in some neighborhoods that the gub-mint hasn't cleaned up for them.