At 6PM CDT, August 27^th all indications are that Hurricane Katrina will strike the City of New Orleans and its immediate environs within the next 48 hours.  For the communities along the northshore of Lake Pontchartrain, the projected storm surge with the current track is estimated will top 14-to-18 feet exclusive of wave action.

No matter what, electrical service and communications will be interrupted in the area for days on end - that is already a given even with a near-miss.  If the absolute very 'worst-case' projections really do come to pass in the Crescent City - a huge community that is essentially a 'bowl' for the most part several feet below sealevel - then I paraphrase Rudolph Giuliani when I say , 'the number of casualties will be more than any of us of can bear'.

We are now faced with a Category 4 - maybe Category 5 -  hurricane, so regardless of strength and proximity of impact it may be a long time before you all will see the signature below ...

Tonight, I am a refugee in the home of an old friend on the eastern edge of Baton Rouge where I will sleep on the floor in air-conditioned comfort.  Civilization begins to rapidly degrade eastward from the Amite River not to resume until you reach the eastern shore of Mobile Bay.  An analogy is that I am luxuriating with a shower and a hot meal in Kuwait while back home awaits the very worst conditions of a slum in Baghdad, i.e., no electricity, no water nor sewage provision, no garbage nor trash collection, no mail delivery, no wired telehone nor cellular service, no cable TV nor broadband Internet service, no police patrols nor response, and no manned fire stations over most if the area with no way to summon emergency services of any kind, and - most distressing - no commerce of any kind so far.  You can get donated cases of bottled water and MREs at a couple of deserted shopping centers if you are lucky.

My few remaining neighbors back home - those valiant few - are sitting in the dark sweating while nervously fingering their repeating shotguns and Magnum revolvers wondering if tonight will be the occasion for the return of the looters who have already struck roughly half the houses on my street.   After having observed a total failure of government at every level for days on end - nay, seemingly days without end - any citizen of the USA, or any other nation in the world for that matter, who opposes the notion of decent Americans enjoying a reasonable Right to Keep and Bear Arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment reveals himself as an utter fool and will only receive contempt from me .

Out there, we are strictly on our own without any timely communication for a citizen seeking emergency services extending beyond the sound of his own voice - with the exception of signaling with gunfire, I suppose.  Forget any notion of even filing a police report for there are neither law enforcement patrols nor fire protection services that can be summoned at any time of day.  Should the goblins turn to arson as they so frequently do during episodes of widespread lawlessness, we will be in a jam sure enough.

Just as I predicted, electrical service and communications have been interrupted in the area - but it will be for many, many weeks rather than the few days I foresaw - before any sort of normalization.  My absolute very 'worst-case' projections came much too close to reality for the Crescent City, and my paraphrase of Rudolph Giuliani all too accurate when I said , 'the number of casualties will be more than any of us of can bear'.

What should border on the unbelievable for those at a distance is that if the storm track had been 30 miles more to the west, I suspect we would had suffered tenfold casualties in Louisiana from the unprecedented flooding.