Wow. Winds are now sustained at 160 miles per hour. A cat 5 hurricane is going to make landfall somewhere along the Gulf coast. It could basically submerge the city of New Orleans. This is going to be a BAD storm - the last cat 5 storms to hit land were in 1935 (an unnamed storm) and Camile in 1969. Hurricane Andrew - the one that destroyed so much of Florida - was a cat 4 at landfall.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastint.html

The remmnats of this storm will sweep up to the northeast...