Um...

(credit: nhcc.noaa.gov)

scratch that. Headed for the LA-AL border, now a Category Five. As you've heard already, of course, if you're anywhere other than lost in the tundra.

So. The crew of the Caribbean Mercy is evacuating right now, closing up and driving to Georgia with the help of three hands from the IOC. The storm surge up the river from Dennis last time almost covered the dock. That was about three feet. The National Weather Service is calculating Katrina's potential storm surge at as much as twenty-five feet. For those who have not had the pleasure of messing around with hurricanes much before, these are vertical feet. As in, if your house is normally six vertical feet above sea level, even if it's half a mile from the beach, it's about to be nineteen feet under.

In my very limited understanding, this poses a real problem for a ship tied to a low dock - particularly if you're not going to be around to slack the mooring lines as the rising floodwaters stretch them drum-tight. None of the real nightmare scenarios are likely to come true, of course, but in theory, if everything went wrong at once, a ship could be rolled over or even physically lifted up on top of the dock. But the CBM has ridden out everything else this year with no problems.

However, for an entire city built ten feet below sea level only a few miles from the sea (like, say, New Orleans) - with the water kept out even in normal times only by an intricate system of piping and pumps - well, as my old geology profs have said for years, in technical terms, they're screwed. One would think the math would suggest certain alternate courses of action. But apparently it's never worried them before. Laissez les bon temps rouler!