I think the fixation with the winds of this hurricane by some posters, especially a former Cat 5 hurricane that has weakened, is amiss and missing the really big picture of the tremendous event that is going to transpire as this system goes inland... regardless of what her winds are at land fall, this storm is going to do tremendous damage from her surge... Ivan taught us that lesson last year as its surge devastated the Panhandle and Katrina validated that lesson again this year destroying the entire MS gulf coast... I expect we'll will get a very similar level of surge destruction along the LA/TX coasts for miles, especially to the areas east of the center .... my heart go out to all the good people of Texas and Louisiana that will be dealing with this storm...