The 11:00 PM EDT advisory is out. Gustav’s intensity appeared to have plateaued, and it’s expected to make landfall right around its current intensity — a borderline Category 2/3 hurricane — in the late morning or around noon, in the marshlands south of Houma. That city of 30,000, where The Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore is stationed, will take the brunt of the storm. Significant deviation from this track now appears unlikely (though small, last-minute “wobbles” are always possible).
New Orleans will most likely dodge a bullet, avoiding catastrophic flooding, unless the levees perform worse than expected. This will not be the “mother of all storms.” The media should, at this point, be ramping down the hype. Twenty-four hours ago, the hype was justified, but now, anyone who is still treating Gustav like some sort of unprecedented apocalypse is just ignoring the data. Thanks to the storm’s totally unexpected post-Cuba weakening and failure to intensify significantly over the Loop Current, this will be a run-of-the-mill, low-end Cat. 3 event, at worst. There will be death and destruction, yes, but certainly not on a “storm of the century” scale.
Anyway… I’m about to go to bed. I’ll try to post an update early in the morning, but I have plans tomorrow and I may not be able to blog again until midday — at which point Gustav will probably be making, or will have just made, landfall in Louisiana.
(we got caught in the Beaumont evacuations) but we are finally at my parents house, I have all my pictures and irreplacables with me, my kids are relieved, I found a kennel close to my parents' house for my dog that was able to board her tonight, and I have free grandparent childcare so my husband and I can finally SLEEP!!!!! My thoughts and prayers are with you all. Y'all stay safe!! 
My DH is not in the "rescue biz" as a few have called it. 25 yrs full time & part time Army National Guard in communications. The field that allowed the rescuers to do their jobs. And I wasn't speaking for him. 
