If It Keeps on Rainin', The Levee's Gonna Break: The Crescent City appears to be looking down the barrel of "the big one" that everyone has talked about. The levee system, which keeps the city dry (some of the time), will likely not withstand Katrina.

"We are facing a storm that most of us have long feared," Mayor Ray Nagin said in ordering the mandatory evacuation for his city of 485,000 people, surrounded by suburbs of a million more. "The storm surge will most likely topple our levee system."

Meanwhile, some tourists are stuck with nowhere to evacuate to.

Tina and Bryan Steven, a couple from Forest Lake, Minn., who came to attend a conference of emergency medical services, sat glumly on the sidewalk outside their hotel in the French Quarter . . . [Tina], wearing a Bourbon Street T-shirt with a lewd message, interjected: "I just don't want to die in this shirt."

A true Yat would rather die than be seen in the shirt in the first place, naturally. Which leads me to Flyer, who knows what its like to ride out a New Orleans hurricane. It comes down to a simple choice: Beat feet or stock beer.

So here's the question, Flyer. You're in your apartment, you've laid in a few cases of Abita and a carton of smokes, and Mayor Nagin has just announced, "Last one out take the flag, please." Stay or go? It seems to me that with some serious preparation, you could stay and observe this in relative safety. But would you want to hang around to see your home taken away?

The tastefully named Brendan Loy is all over this storm.