Wow, that is pretty impressive.

By Saturday morning, [the national hurricane center was] locked onto southern Louisiana. It was a pretty darned good two-day forecast, and nobody trusts four- to-five-day forecasts anyway, whether it's a hurricane or not.

It shouldn't be too severe yet. If we see these dry levels this summer, it could be disastrous.

We are in a weak El Nio that started a few months back and is gradually building. Typically what ends up happening is we get more 'cyclogenesis' --the formation of storms -- taking place in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico off of the Texas coast. Once these things form they tend to track towards the Northwest. It puts (Lufkin) in proximity for some rainfall.

Every one of these municipalities has to make decisions to how much risk they want to take. Most people don't defend against 100-year floods when building drainage networks. It all depends how much risk you're willing to take.

(El Nio) can be very persistent on occasion, and it does seem like we are in a mode where we are seeing them more frequently.