Yes and the large windfield, that was why it was just so completely astonishing the mayor didn't act on Friday night, or Sat morning! I kept wondering about that. I think he just didn't get it, that all the while water level was rising, and just like a dam, the impact of the additional heavy water over a period of days was what was going to cause the failures, not how much wind they were ultimately going to get a couple days down the road. But engineers must have told him, right?

Do you know that between the time Katrina became a Cat 3 and the LA landfall, she had grown in size to a area roughly eight times larger than she started with on Friday? It was unreal.

I think there is the potential for Rita to become a large hurricane, but not on that order of magnitude. To me, Katrina seemed like a 1000-year storm for landfall in the GOM. It isn't possible to compare other GOM storms to Katrina; she was in a category all her own those last three days.

Well I'm surprised I feel ok about jumping in again and trying to keep learning about tracking and forecasting hurricanes. And Rita has been interesting with her quirks.