Publication Items

 By JEREMY HARPER 
When I went to sleep Wednesday, Sept. 21, Hurricane Rita was threatening the Texas coast, promising to pester Louisiana with no more than a quick bout of tropical storm conditions. I was prepared to ride out the fringe of the storm in either my apartment on the second floor of a sturdy historic building in downtown Lake Charles, La., a city of 75,000 about 40 miles inland of the Gulf of Mexico, or in the newsroom of the American Press, the city's daily newspaper where I have worked for four years as a reporter.

 By KATINA GAUDET 

"We have a different fear of hurricanes."

My friend Yasmin was trying to rationalize her fearlessness in the face of an imposing Hurricane Katrina, expected to make landfall near New Orleans the next day, from her first-floor Uptown apartment.

But I was having difficulty, although safe in a hotel room near Memphis. I was frantic, yelling into the phone at Yasmin, "You cannot stay there."