Gustav Vs Katrina: 94 dead with storm yet to make landfall

Gustav appears to be a monster of another order of magnitude. 212mph winds in Cuba are hard to believe. While Katrina was a monster, her pattern was fairly stably and predictable. Gustav's pattern is assymetrical and variable. A midday landfall is also significant - the warmest time of day.

Katrina, a Category 4 hurricane with 145 mph winds, made initial landfall near Buras, La at 6:10am. At 9am on Monday, August 29 2005, Katrina passed over New Orleans. Making landfall early means the storm doesn't strengthen after weakening overnight (cooler overall conditions). Gustav will have half a day to gather momentum from its current Category 3 status.

clipped from news.yahoo.com The storm was set to crash ashore late Monday morning with frightful force, testing three years of planning and rebuilding that followed Katrina's devastating blow to the Gulf Coast. The storm has already killed at least 94 people on its path through the Caribbean. Painfully aware of the failings that led to more than 1,600 deaths during Katrina, this time officials moved beyond merely insisting tourists and residents leave south Louisiana. They threatened to put looters behind bars, loaded thousands onto buses and warned that anyone who remained behind would not be rescued. There were frightening comparisons between Gustav and Katrina, which flooded 80 percent of New Orleans. There was no doubt the storm posed a major threat to the partially rebuilt city and the flood-prone coasts of Louisiana and southeast Texas.