Hurricane Katrina

Woke up this morning and turned on CNN (like I usually do) and saw that Katrina is now a cat. 5 packing winds of 175 MPH and making a beeline for New Orleans. Under this scenario New Orleans is going to cease to exist. The average elevation of the city is 6 ft. below sea level, and the predicted storm surge is 25 ft. As of Monday afternoon New Orleans simply won't be there. They are wisely putting the entire city under a mandatory evacuation order (including my cousin her husband and my niece, who are currently on their way to Atlanta) but not everyone is going to get out. I fear that the death toll from this is going to dwarf 9/11. They will never find all the bodies. Unless something miraculous happens in the next 24 hours we are going to experience the greatest disaster to ever occur on American soil

Aside from the dire predictions something else to consider, most of the oil imported into this country goes through the port of Southern Louisiana so we are going to see a major disruption in oil supplies in this country. Bin Laden and co. have spoken frequently of disrupting the oil flow into the U.S. but they could never dream of doing something on this scale. By Monday afternoon the price of oil is going to shoot up to $80 a barrel and stay there. I would predict that there will be real pressure to tap into the strategic oil reserve by the middle of the week. But in the meantime, do yourself a favor and fill up this afternoon!