Storm Surge
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The house I used to live in near New Iberia, Louisiana was at an elevation of 20 feet above mean sea level. The latest prediction I can find shows that hurricane Gustav will hit this area with a storm surge of 12 feet. So it probably will be OK. The food processing factory that I was Plant Manager of is a few miles closer to the Gulf of Mexico, sits directly next to a bayou, and is at an elevation somewhat lower. The factory buildings are at about 15 feet MSL, and the wastewater ponds just a few hundred meters to the south are less than 10 feet above sea level. So this might be more problematic.
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Because of the turning of the earth, in the 
northern hemisphere low pressure areas always rotate counter-clockwise. Low pressure areas include tornadoes and hurricanes.
As a hurricane travels in a generally northerly direction over the Gulf of Mexico, since it is turning counter clockwise, and has really powerful winds, the sea water is pushed up in the northeast corner. So if a hurricane eye just misses you and you happen to be just to the east of the eye of the storm you have a much bigger problem than those people who happen to be just to the west of the eye of the storm.
When this hurricane storm surge tide happens to occur in conjunction with the normal high tide, or when high tide combined with the moon and sun being just in the right locations, then this hurricane storm surge can even be even more of a problem.
This latest projection indicates that New Orleans might experience a storm surge between 15 and 21 feet above normal mean sea level. This could pose a real problem where some of the city is at or even below sea level.
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In Holland the Dutch have built some remarkable dikes and movable sea walls to protect their below sea level land from big storms and tidal surges. But we have to be honest about it, while the Atlantic Ocean storms that hit the west coast of Europe are really quite severe, they are little baby storms which are not even in the same league when compared with a category 5 tropical cyclone or hurricane.
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