Louisiana braces for Katrina as Florida cleans up.

Publication: South Florida Sun-Sentinel (via Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service)

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COPYRIGHT 2005 South Florida Sun-Sentinal

Byline: Robert Nolin and Linda Kleindienst

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ On opposite ends of its path Saturday, Hurricane Katrina told a tale of two Floridas.

In South Florida, residents grateful to have survived a Category 1 storm labored to regain normalcy. Along the storm-stricken Panhandle, nervous residents braced for a storm that could burgeon into a deadly Category 4.

Saturday evening, Katrina was located at latitude 24.8 north and longitude 85.9 west, about 360 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River, and appeared to be taking aim for Louisiana, possibly by Monday. Tracking westward, Katrina's gale force winds could also batter Florida's Panhandle, which within the past year has been hammered by two Category 3 hurricanes, Ivan and Dennis.

Said state meteorologist Ben Nelson, "We could have 25-foot seas not too far offshore in the Panhandle on Monday."

A Category 4 hurricane's winds and coastal storm surge to lower-than-sea-level New Orleans could potentially bring a higher death toll than the nine lives lost in South Florida to Katrina.

"This is the real deal," New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin said. "Board up your homes, make sure you have enough medicine, make sure the car has enough gas."

Louisiana officials called for residents in low-lying areas to evacuate at daybreak Sunday....

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