8:22 PM CDT\r\nAugust 28, 2005\r\nBaton Rouge, La. \r\n\r\nNightfall has descended on Baton Rouge. Not much happening but an occasional gust of wind. My husband Tommy has an inkling Katrina may turn eastward a bit and make landfall at Biloxi Mississippi. While we woudn\'t wish this storm on anyone, New Orleans is the worst possible city to take a direct hit. Once in our hurricane history, we\'ve had a powerful storm dissipate - so we are all praying for that, even though it doesn\'t seem likely. \r\n\r\nAt any rate, Tommy thinks we won\'t see much action in Baton Rouge - and that New Orleans is going to be spared. Somehow they always are. Likewise, we are veterans at this and more than once we\'ve boarded up, battened down, stored food and rations like squirrels, only to have nothing happen. It is a little bit of a let down when you work yourself up to such an adrenaline rush and don\'t even get a drop of rain. The media gets all pumped up and gets us all pumped up, but they really have to. When you have a million people at risk in you have to prepare for any possibility. So we\'ll see. \r\n\r\nOn another note, Nowadays we have advanced technologies but it hasn\'t always been so in my lifetime. Back in the day we relied only on the hurricane hunters who took the reconnaisance planes out and eyeballed the storms firsthand, then came back to report. We only had our local television stations to relay the information and you could pick up NOAA on the radio. No wealther channel or computers back then so the information we did receive was often hours behind the reality. You didn\'t know what you could expect. \r\n\r\nThat\'s why folks in Biloxi were totally shocked and unprepared for the catastrophic Hurricane that Camille turned out to be. The city police and emergency officials were literally knocking on doors warning people to evacuate. Folks were having hurricane parties and laughing it off. Those folks did not survive the storm and in many cases the bodies were never found - washed away to sea. Today we pretty much get up to the minute information and the advanced technology we have today lets us know the severity of the storms we are dealing with well in advance of their arrival. \r\n\r\nMargaret Saizan\r\nwww.hurricane-katrina.org \r\n