Gustav appears to be barrelling along the predicted track, straight towards Louisiana. Roger Pielke Jr looks at the history of similar strength storms landing there and finds (and this should be unsurprising, although you wouldn’t know it given the coverage) that, “if Gustav does avoid a direct hit on New Orleans and makes landfall as a Category 3 (very important qualifications), then it would be safe to conclude that losses won’t even remotely approach those of Katrina, and will likely be an order of magnitude less, and perhaps even lower. If levees are overtopped or burst in New Orleans, then damage could rapidly escalate.”