Hurricane Katrina

Nine Lives Death and Life in New Orleans Dan Baum Spiegel & Grau: 336 pp., $26 -- Although it grew out of his reporting on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina for the New Yorker, Dan Baum's extraordinary book reads more like fiction than journalism.

A conservative priest whose promotion to bishop has polarized the Roman Catholic Church in Austria asked Pope Benedict XVI to revoke his appointment because of the uproar it had caused. The resignation of Gerhard Maria Wagner, who said Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was God punishing New Orleans for its sins, came on the eve of a crisis meeting of Austria's bishops to discuss the controversy. The Austrian Catholic news agency Kathpress said the request was granted.

The mayor of Gulfport faces federal fraud charges for allegedly filing a false claim for disaster assistance after Hurricane Katrina. Mayor Brent Warr says he will continue to run the city, which was heavily damaged by Katrina's wind and storm surge in 2005. The indictment alleges Warr and his wife, Laura, sought a grant for a damaged beachfront house they did not live in. They pleaded not guilty.

Three and a half years after the floodwaters rose and swallowed New Orleans, popular culture doesn't quite know what to do with Hurricane Katrina and its ongoing effect on the city's and the country's identity. The diminishing news reports vacillate between patly hopeful -- Mardi Gras is back! -- and numerically dispiriting as the city faces funding issues and the overwhelming challenge of recalling a diaspora. Attempts to explore Katrina artistically have been less than wildly successful.

Hurricane Paloma pounded the British Caribbean territory of the Cayman Islands after strengthening into a dangerously powerful storm, posing a serious threat to storm-battered Cuba. Businesses, schools and offices closed down in the Caymans, a major financial center, while residents shuttered homes and visitors tried to flee as the late-season storm hurtled northward. Paloma gathered power menacingly fast as it neared Grand Cayman Island and it became a major hurricane -- Category 3 on the five-step scale of storm intensity -- with top sustained winds of 115 mph, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

As the water began to rise on the first floor of her house Monday, Connie Danese hurriedly stacked ornaments, photos and other valuables on top of a piano that had been in her husband's family for decades. Other keepsakes were piled onto every available surface on the kitchen counter and table. More belongings were hauled upstairs. Connie and Sam Danese refused to evacuate when Hurricane Gustav approached their two-story house in the Oak Harbor subdivision of this small coastal Mississippi town.

Three years after disgracing itself with a bungled response to Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency acknowledged Monday, as it mobilized against the force of Gustav, that it had learned some lessons. Nearly 2 million Gulf Coast residents were evacuated to shelters by plane, train and bus hours before Hurricane Gustav hit Louisiana. Helicopters sat on the fringes to start search-and-rescue efforts as soon as the skies cleared. Crates of food, water and blankets were at the ready -- all in stark contrast to the too-little-too-late response to Katrina that left thousands stranded, about 1,800 dead and 90,000 square miles devastated.

The first stirrings of Hurricane Gustav on Mississippi's coast showed up late Sunday in the ominous rain that pelted down along Highway 49. The rain was accompanied by the drenched, forlorn Louisiana evacuees who showed up in hotel lobbies desperate for a place to stay. Desperation was just as palpable on the other side of the projected hurricane zone, in Beaumont, Texas. There, thousands of residents were joining the auto caravans snaking eastward, leaving a nearly emptied ghost town for the Louisiana refugees who fled behind them.

As city workers hung American flags and added patriotic-elephant decorations along downtown streets Saturday, tens of thousands of Republicans from across the country began arriving here for the party's national convention. But the festive atmosphere was dampened by growing concern over Hurricane Gustav, which is bearing down on the Gulf Coast; the arrest of protesters who police say planned riots; and cancellations by several high-profile speakers, including California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

With Hurricane Gustav gaining strength in the Caribbean as Republicans prepare to gather in Minnesota, television networks are scrambling to get people in place to cover both stories at once. The networks are deploying correspondents across the Gulf Coast in case Gustav slams the region with the same force that Hurricane Katrina did in 2005. Meantime, the Republican National Convention is set to begin in St. Paul on Monday. The competing stories may create a bind for the networks' top talent.