Hurricane Issac hits New Orleans; six years after Katrina

Hurricane Issac is due to hit New Orleans seven years after Hurricane Katrina hit The Crescent City, but the Category One storm is, as of this writing, four times smaller in intensity than the giant city-destroyer that Katrina was.

According to NOLA.com, the weather disturbance that started in the South Atlantic Ocean as a tropical storm and grown to its present state will arrive in New Orleans at 1 AM EST. NOLA reports:

A strengthening Hurricane Isaac remains on track for an early morning rendezvous with New Orleans, according to the 4 p.m. forecast of the National Hurricane Center. The center of the huge, slow-moving storm will be a bit south and west of the city by 1 a.m. Wednesday, reach the northwest edge of Lake Maurepas as a strong tropical storm with 65-mph sustained winds by 1 p.m. Wednesday, and dissolve into a tropical depression at the Louisiana-Arkansas border by 1 p.m. Thursday.

Impact On The Republican Convention

Originally, many thought then-Tropical Storm Issac was going to hit Tampa, Florida, the site of the 2012 Republican National Convention. But two days ago, the giant swirl turned more to the west and then was on a bee-line course for New Orleans.

But the fact that Issac was headed toward Tampa, or that it’s timing came right during the RNC, does take away from media attention paid to the Republican message. Moreover, it puts President Barack Obama in center stage as the head of the Federal Government’s disaster mitigation and relief effort, and for an area that was victimized by many examples of Government ineffectiveness in 2005.

Earlier today, “New Orleans” hit the Twitter Top Trends at number seven, along with Katrina at nine, and earlier than both “Hurricane.” The only time any term related to the RNC hit Twitter Top Trends was “Ann Romney” and that was for just about three minutes.

Now, the term “2012 MTV Video Music Awards” is in the Top, along with hashtags associated with it. Nothing on the RNC.

Stay tuned.