WI: Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans at Category 5

[bm79]

If it hits Port Fourchon and destroys the LOOP Terminal and the oil terminal there, the US just lost a major oil delivery point. Think the oil prices were high OTL?
And if Rita damages Houston, the Ship Channel, and the refineries...that would be worse.

(Loosely based on the mockumentary, "Oil Storm".)

We had a watch party at my house when Oil Storm first aired in July 2005. Being from New Orleans, it felt very relevant to me and my friends, even as young adults. How eerie, thinking back on it, considering what would transpire the next month.

As to the larger question of the thread, New Orleans got it pretty much as bad as it could be. While it hit land at cat 3, it carried a cat 5 storm surge. Also, making landfall to the east exposed what turned out to be our weakest link in the levee defenses, the lakeside outfall canal levees, to massive wind-driven surges. There's basically no other trajectory that could have led to the failure of all three outfall canals.

 

[Swabbio]

Could Mississippi be damaged worse with a cat 5 or was that maxed out too?

Coastal Mississippi was literally 90% gone...it was a classic case of "can't get worse".

New Orleans, I don't think the storm being worse or hitting in a different location will make it much worse, but maybe the aftermath itself is worse? Although, I'm stretching the limits to think of how much more wrong it can go... Help taking even longer to reach the city, the Superdome collapsing (for some reason?). The outbreak of cholera or something within the refuge centers, without sanitary conditions. The National Guard patrols and weapons-confiscations ending up worse?

In regards to Port Fourchon, Katrina's eye passed over Grand Isle (about 10 or 15 miles east of Port Fourchon) before continuing around the east of New Orleans to hit the western edge of Mississippi's coast. So that was pretty close already.