Six weeks ago, I moved back to the city locals call "Katrinaville".  I live in a neighborhood called "the Bywater", east of the Marigny/French Quarter area and I work uptown, by the riverbend.

With the hurricane season kicking into high gear and the first year anniversary of the tragedy of Katrina, I feel this is the right time to start the New Orleans blog again.  I will update this blog as often as I can, but our cable connection is sketchy ( Katrinaville is where nothing should be expected...), so please don't be offended if I suddenly disappear (which could happen if we have to evacuate this year).

In an all-too-familiar scenario, tens of thousands are evacuating the Keys. Wilma's path remains unpredictable and communities along the Gulf stand ready for a possible strike. Wilma has set a new record since 1933, being the 22nd storm in a single season to form in the Atlantic.

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Water has broken through a damaged levee protecting New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward, flooding the low-lying neighborhood that was devastated last month by Hurricane Katrina, a CNN crew reported.


A CNN photojournalist reported that the water was at least two-feet deep in the ward and was rising quickly.

CNN

HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) -- A bus caught fire and exploded early Friday on a crowded Texas interstate, killing as many as 24 people who were fleeing ahead of Hurricane Rita.


The bus, carrying about 45 elderly evacuees, burst into flames on Interstate 45 south of Dallas. It pulled over and people were getting off when a series of explosions ripped through the bus.

CNN

GALVESTON -- Hurricane Rita weakened this morning from a top-of-the-scale Category 5 hurricane to a Category 4 as it swirled across the Gulf of Mexico, and forecasters said it could lose more steam by the time it comes ashore late Friday or early Saturday.


And in the afternoon, Rita closed in on the Texas Gulf Coast and the heart of the U.S. oil-refining industry with howling 145 mph winds Thursday, but a sharper-than-expected turn to the right set it on a course that could spare Houston and nearby Galveston a direct hit. Instead, it looked as if Rita might come ashore near Port Arthur or Lake Charles, La., at least 60 miles up the coast.


But it was still an extremely dangerous storm — and one aimed at a section of coastline with the nation's biggest concentration of oil refineries. Environmentalists warned of the possibility of a toxic spill from the 87 industrial plants and storage installations that represent more than one-fourth of U.S. refining capacity.


Houston Chronicle

Somebody with meteorological knowledge...just what is behind Rita?? Another storm in the making? Hopefully it'll drift to colder waters and fizzle out in the sea.

The green model from BAMD is quite possibly the worst scenario...I don't like all these stop and turn around and go again path possibilities either.

NEW IBERIA, La. (AP) — As many as 500,000 people in southwestern Louisiana, many of them already displaced by Hurricane Katrina, were told to evacuate Thursday as Hurricane Rita headed for a forecast landfall near the Texas state line.

Mindful of Katrina's rising death toll in Louisiana — 832 as of Thursday morning — Gov. Kathleen Blanco recommended that those who refuse to flee Rita "write their Social Security numbers on their arms with indelible ink."

NOLA.COM

The Houston Chronicle is experimenting with a new way of getting news...directly from bloggers in the area.


Storm Watchers Blog ; Citizen Journalists Covering Hurricane Rita

"Editor's note: Welcome to our experiment in citizen journalism. The bloggers who are posting here live in various parts of the city, and they will be posting their experiences as Hurricane Rita approaches and moves through the area. Bloggers here are posting on their own and are solely responsible for the content of their blogs."