Hurricane Katrina has reached category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. To reach this level, the storm must have sustained winds in excess of 150 mph and surges of over 19 feet. Katrina is running at 178 mph right now and surging as high as 25 feet. She is also gusting to 202 mph.

What does all this mean? This is going to be catastophic folks. The category 5 winds are stretching out over a 250 mile diameter around the eye. The whole system is over 460 miles across. I am not kidding boys and girls, if you are anywhere in the path of this thing, run, run NOW!

And why did I also label this story as “journalism”? Is it just me, or do the news channels almost seem to enjoy these stories? “Hey…which reporter are we pissed at? Send them down to the storm!”