Almost exactly three years ago we started reporting on the impact of hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans. Archives of two of the three programmes are here, here sadly the main part of our coverage isn't written up, I guess I was just too busy to type up notes.

Now that Gustav threatens it's interesting to visit again with some of those we spoke to back then- John Strain in Covington LA writes:

Last night we had a couple of brief thunderstorms from feeder bands, but they come through quickly. The slightly westward shift may save us from the doom and gloom we were all expecting yesterday. You never know though, we thought we dodged a bullet with Katrina until the levees breached.

George "Loki" Williams from Humid City is posting audio reports on his blog:

The Oil Drum looks at the likely damage to production. They have an analysis of likely loss of production. Doubtless the figures will mean something to those who know. The plain English summary is rather easier to follow:

All in all, my thinking is that this could have been a lot worse. Storm was disorganized crossing the OCS, so waves and storm surge will be lower than they should be for a storm of this size and intensity.

Chris Decker a priest in Baton Rouge is podcasting. and looking at the theological implications of all this.

Insomnia quotes another blogger we spoke with, Jeff Masters at Weather Underground

The view of some of the bloggers we spoke to in 2005. As I write this post I'm conscious of how much social media has moved foward. Twitterlocal now provides a steady volume of posts such as this:

Mandeville is okay. Some places still have power. No major flooding

Other tools are also being enlisted to track the storm. Google Earth has a special Gustav folder Startupmeme reports

In the political blogosphere, conservative bloggers, pounced on remarks by former DNC chairman Don Fowler captured in a "gotcha" video of the sort we're only likely to see more of as the US election progresses. The video was of course posted to YouTube. Fowler has apologised, and as Instapundit notes:

What's interesting is that the apology came before the story was picked up by the traditional media

Political points for Republicans. The residents of NoLa will certainly have more immediate concerns on their mind.

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