I just had to get the following out of my head. I hope I'm just panicking, but all observable evidence suggests that I have good reason.

It's 10pm in south Louisiana. Hurricane Ike made landfall at 3:20AM this morning at Galveston/Houston, some 500 miles away. Ike is now somewhere in north Texas & Oklahoma if not further.

Yet somehow, Ike's storm surge CONTINUES TO RISE slightly in parts of coastal Louisiana this evening, or at best have held steady since early AM yesterday. It's not just the coast either; water is inching towards homes in non-coastal parishes. I don't ever remember this happening before and everyone from Cameron Parish on the west end of LA to Plaquemines Parish on the east end of LA is saying the flooding this time is worse than Rita's surge in 2005. There's no more time for restoration studies or planning. We are literally washing away down here.