Please read this if you live in New Orleans, or know anyone who does

Pre-College Issues High School Life
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<p>I know this isn't exactly the place for this, but I wanted to get it out there for people to see. Please read the announcement below.</p>

<p>If you know anyone in the city of New Orleans or anywhere along Lake Ponchartrain in Louisiana, you need to tell them to EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY. Hurricane Katrina is headed to New Orleans. Tell them NOT to take the Ponchartrain Causeway to get out of the city- Have them go on I-10 West towards Baton Rouge, or I-59 North towards Hattiesburg. There will be LOTS of traffic and if they get caught on the Causeway when the storm hits, they'll be drowned in the lake.</p>

<p>Hurricane Katrina is a category three hurricane and is expected to be a CATEGORY FOUR HURRICANE by Monday. It is expected to make landfall somewhere between Lafeyette and Biloxi/Gulfport. NOAA Forecast models predict that New Orleans has an 85% chance of being hit by the hurricane.</p>

<p>This is why they need to evacuate: The city is surrounded by water on all sides. To the North, there's Lake Ponchartrain, which is nearly as big as Rhode Island. To the East is the Atlantic Ocean, and to the South and West is the Mississippi River. Most of the city, including the downtown and residential areas, are BELOW SEA LEVEL. When the water rushes in from the lake, or from the ocean, due to storm surge, there will be nowhere for it to go other than the city itself. The emergency water pump systems there, and the levees, are only meant to hold back the river, or at the most a category two hurricane.</p>

<p>The US Army Corps of Engineers has predicted that if New Orleans is hit by this storm, deaths will number from 50,000 to 100,000, and they say even that is a conservative estimate. Many more people will die from drinking the poisoned water, and thousands will suffer malnutrition. It will take months to get the water out of the city, and once that is accomplished the whole city will have to be rebuilt because none of the buildings will be safe after the flood.</p>

<p>Please, I'm dead serious about this. If you don't believe me, check at <a href="http://www.noaa.gov%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.noaa.gov&lt;/a>, they have forecast paths of Hurricane Katrina, this storm is headed to the New Orleans area and it IS a threat. If you have friends or family in New Orleans... Please, make sure they evacuate the area immediately. Any delay could result in their deaths.</p>

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<p>...digging through archives, I found this</p>

<p>interesting to see how things turned out</p>

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<p>Wow, that's really interesting. It's kinda eery how accurate estimates actually were...</p>

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<p>what was the death toll from Katrina? it wasn't 50,000.....</p>

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<p>At least 1,300.</p>

<p><a href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002798269_katrinadeath11.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002798269_katrinadeath11.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>ditto kissmyasymptote, the post sounds so scary, but what's even worse is that most of it came true..</p>