By J. TAYLOR RUSHING
Advocate staff writer

Zebra's center is squarely over New Orleans by Friday afternoon, whipping the city with gale-force winds and pouring water over the levees.

Streets become canals. Escape routes are shut down. Hospitals are swamped. Damage starts creeping into the millions.

And then Hurricane Zebra heads north, along Interstate 10 toward Baton Rouge.

Fortunately, Hurricane Zebra won't be visiting Louisiana. It was only the creation Thursday of a few LSU scientists and a practice model for state and federal agencies at the State Police office on East Airport Drive.

Using a fictional hurricane loosely modeled on the path of Hurricane Georges in 1998, agencies such as the State Police, the U.S. Coast Guard, the National Guard and the National Hurricane Center practiced procedures and communications.

"They wanted us to create a storm that beats the bejesus out of New Orleans and then rides up I-10," State Climatologist Jay Grymes said. "The point is to see what happens when these agencies are stretched to the breaking point, when there's catastrophe after catastrophe, flooding, wind damage and sporadic tornadoes."

At the end of the six-hour demonstration, officials reported only a few software glitches and minor communication problems.

"We're real pleased," State Police Capt. Kenneth Trull said. "But we did reinforce a lesson -- it's a joint effort and we must work together. No one agency has the resources, technology and equipment to do it all."

Col. Terry Landry, on his first full day as superintendent of State Police, said the demonstration showed the agency is prepared for the havoc of a hurricane.

Laptop computers covered desks in a central room, maps papered the walls and animations filled a video screen at the State Police office.

A taped paper sign hung from a rear wall: "Crises and deadlocks, when they occur, have at least this advantage: They force us to think."

Thursday's demonstration came just before the peak of hurricane season -- the storms become stronger and more frequent in August and September. It specifically tested communication networks between state agencies, national weather centers and local offices.

Using a checklist of procedures, officials focused on evacuating residents from Louisiana's southeast parishes, a massive problem.

Dick Gannon, a crisis consultant for the State Police, said Hurricane Zebra would force the evacuation of 1.5 million people from New Orleans.

Gannon, who has studied the city's levee system, said the key would be to leave New Orleans even before the weather looks threatening. That's because evacuation routes will dwindle as winds and flooding start to overwhelm the city.

State Police Maj. J.T. Booth also said evacuation orders are especially important with a storm such as Zebra, which would dump too much water too fast for residents to stall.

"The Louisiana coastline is particularly vulnerable because it's below sea level, there is little barrier protection and the evacuation routes are low-lying," Booth said. "So when we say it's time to leave, leave."

Zebra's model, Hurricane Georges, caused $2.5 billion in damage to the Gulf Coast in 1998, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. But the storm veered north into Mississippi just as it was about to hit New Orleans, avoiding most of Louisiana.

Zebra didn't veer. Instead, it steered slowly through New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Lake Charles and into Texas. Officials pretended the storm weakened along the way, but not as much as they said a real hurricane would.

Hurricane experts say it's unlikely, but not impossible, that Louisiana would ever suffer such a direct hit as Zebra.

Kevin Robbins, director of the Southern Regional Climate Center at LSU, said most hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico eventually become steered by a nearby jet stream when they approach land. Since the stream runs in a northeastern direction, Robbins said it naturally pulls storms such as Georges in that direction.

But Oscar Huh, director of LSU's Earth Scan Laboratory, also said some storms defy prediction.

"They've been known to reverse themselves," Huh said. "It's a crap shoot every year. The threat is super-real. And because of Lake Pontchartrain, once water is in New Orleans, it's everywhere."

Grymes called Zebra "a Hollywood hurricane."

"Its track and its intensity are overstated for the sake of today," he said. "But the threat is there. And a lot of people don't realize that there would not only be flooding and loss of life, but a serious hazardous materials problem. Because every gas station and every junkyard would be a pool."

Joe Suhayda, director of the Louisiana Water Resources Research Institute at LSU, said scientists believe 2000 will be a particularly dangerous year for hurricanes in the Gulf. Suhayda said temperature and atmospheric patterns have proven to be reliable indicators.

"It will be a worse season than in recent years," he said. "It's an increasing threat."

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