I’m amazed that Hurricane Katrina, moving north across the Gulf of Mexico and around 15 hours from landfall, isn’t lead item in tonight’s BBC news.

With the entire population of New Orleans told to evacuate, but 100,000 unable or unwilling to leave, we’re about to witness the horror of a category five hurricane hitting a major city - and a major city that’s an average of 5-6 feet under sea level.

Any doubt about what this means should be dispelled by the US National Weather Service warning issued today, and quoted on Nola.com’s breaking news weblog:

“Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks, perhaps longer,” says the statement. “At least one-half of well-constructed homes will have roof and wall failure. All gabled roofs will fail, leaving those homes severely damaged or destroyed.”

The statement says the majority of industrial buildings will become “non-functional,” with partial or complete wall and roof failure.

[...]

The statement says high-rise office and apartment buildings will sway dangerously, “a few to the point of total collapse.” And all their windows will blow out.

[...]

Power outages will last for weeks because most power poles will be down and transformers will be destroyed. Most trees will be snapped or uprooted and even the heartiest, if they survive, will be stripped of all leaves.

Jeff Jarvis is saying the Nola.com team is heading in to New Orleans as the rest of the city gets the hell out - they’ve got a storm-proof bunker there to report from, it seems. Rather them than me - I wouldn’t like to sit out a category five at my desk. He also points at a previously-published special report on what might happen to the area when the big one arrives.

The Florida-based St Petersburg Times has a good storm tracker. And Mr Hammersley points me in the direction of the picture above and Stormtrack.com, where they’re speculating there could be so much rainfall the Mississippi changes direction. I’m hoping nobody’s silly enough to hang around so they can post storm pix to Flickr.

Finally, regular readers will know I was fascinated by the celebrity pastors I saw on TV in Florida earlier this year, and in particular their born-again debt reduction. Well, now I’ve found some born-again hurricane forecasting. On the eve of disaster, “Chuck D. Pierce” is here to tell you (in bright red crazy type): I told you so.

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