CNN/AP: Australia faces Katrina-type cyclone

[DeepModem Mom]

Australia faces Katrina-type cyclone
Sunday, March 19, 2006

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Residents along stretches of Australia's northeastern coast were ordered out of their homes Sunday as a powerful tropical cyclone bore down on them packing damaging winds and the threat of a devastating storm surge.

Tropical Cyclone Larry was a category four storm, on a scale that tops at five, and Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said it could pack wind gusts up to 280 kilometers per hour (174 mph). The bureau did not give a reading for the storm's sustained winds.

Queensland state Counter Disaster and Rescue Services executive director Frank Pagano compared the potential force of Larry to Katrina, which ravaged the United States' Gulf Coast in August last year, killing more than 1,300 people.

"This is the most devastating cyclone that we could potentially see on the east coast of Queensland for decades ... there is going to be destruction," Pagano told reporters in Brisbane.

"Katrina was a category five -- this is currently a category four that can develop similar to the American one," he added....

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/03/19/cyclone.larry.ap/index.html