and perhaps some other states in the gulf region (I've visited Louisiana but not Mississippi, Alabama or northern Florida) that you won't see in other parts of the country is homes built on stilts. Not particularly high off the ground, maybe a foot or so, but definitely built with regular flooding in the area in mind. This is in areas at or slightly above sea level, and I've seen this type of home construction in Louisiana as far north as Shreveport.

A large part of New Orleans is basically a below sea level bowl. What happened with Katrina had been predicted for decades. The levy system in place to help prevent the flooding was inadequate. While much repair and new construction has been done on the levies since Katrina, they still aren't what they need to be. That's why no one wanted to take any chances this time with Gustav.

I'll admit I was a bit upset when the Louisiana Governor last Friday ordered the event I was supposed to work this weekend in Baton Rouge to be canceled. The event itself was scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, and would have been successfully completed without weather complications. But, Gustav decided to speed up his projected landfall arrival from Monday night/Tuesday morning to late last night. I wouldn't have been able to drive from Baton Rouge to New Orleans this morning for my flight home, even if the planes were flying this morning. While I now owe my employer an event (this one was per diem paid in advance), it would have been much more expensive had I needed to change not only the drop off location for a rental car but add a day to two to the contract, add another hotel night or two, and incur the costs of a guaranteed seat on a flight home from a different airport.

All things said, the call to evacuate was the right call, made at the right time. Had the same actions taken place 3 years ago, New Orleans would still have been hit, but many more people would be alive. Erring on the side of caution is better than explaining or trying to justify a lack of foresight. Katrina taught some hard lessons on how to prepare for such a catastrophic natural disaster, and I'm very happy to see those lessons were actually learned, especially by those in control at the state and local levels in the area.