Residents and community leaders in New Orleans, Louisiana,the Big Easy, have long feared the Big One, the almost-mythical ¿bercane predicted to one day destroy the city in a torrent of rushing water and violent winds. On the morning of Monday, 29 August 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall as a Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale, first to the south of New Orleans along the Mississippi delta, and then just to the east of New Orleans near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Only hours earlier, Hurricane Katrina, which weakened before landfall, had possessed sustained winds of 281 kph, with gusts over 321 kph.