no, Sammitch, overall the MS Gulf Coast (and Alabama, too. Mobile was hit pretty hard, I know) was hit much harder than nola. the coast was pretty much wiped out (which if you were down here as you said, you would've seen some of. and I'm not saying you weren't. don't get the wrong idea.), whereas nola was mostly avoided by the hurricane.
all the damage in nola was from the breaking levees. it may seem like pedantery, but it's actually an important point to make given the sensationalistic manner in which so many news outlets have handled the story and in which so many *uninvolved individuals* have attempted to politicize the disaster, rather than spending their time doing something useful such as attempting to aid recovery.
I'd forgotten that, but it's true.
New Orleans actually weathered the storm pretty well. The flooding of New Orleans (or nola) actually occurred a day or two later, when the levi eventually broke. It was the flooding after hurricane Katrina, not the actual storm, that caused most of the damage there. While other coastal areas east of New Orleans got pounded to dust by the eye of the storm.
Areas of Mississippi and Alabama were completely leveled by storm surge and wind, up to a mile inland from the storm.
