I think the other thing is that the coastline of LA most affected is sparsely populated to start and probably close to fully evacuated which is a big difference from the areas East of Katrina's landfall. For Rita most of the media was on the west of the landfall location but for Katrina there was coverage on both sides too.

I think it's safe to say that there is lots of wind damage in a big area. Surge, especially well inland at low elevation (where the people are) is the big question right now I guess. It was forecast to be high, but I haven't seen info to support or discount that yet.