Battening down for Gustav

Three years ago tomorrow Hurricane Katrina ravaged coastal Mississippi and Louisiana. I'm currently in Leakesville, a really nice small town of about 1,000 just 50 miles inland from the Mississippi Gulf Coast. All the local talk is about Tropical Storm Gustav, which is now forecast to be a Category 3 or so hurricane making landfall somewhere around Louisiana late Monday or early Tuesday morning. But that's four days away and it's still way too early to tell where it will actually go. Today Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour declared a state of emergency for this part of the state. My gopher tortoise trapping over here will end tomorrow, and I'll be headed back home to Andalusia, a south Alabama town almost nine times bigger than Leakesville but still a small town, which hopefully will be out of the path of the storm. I wish my friends in Mississippi safety, but I must say a good hurricane or two every few years is probably needed to give pause to those who see our coastlines as places to "develop" rather than protect. Hurricanes are scary, but thrilling at the same time. It should be interesting...