NEW ORLEANS – Hurricane Nate, despite garnering a lot of attention locally ended up being little more than a dry run for a more serious situation in Louisiana, with the majority of the issues from the storm occurring in Mississippi and Alabama.
The track of Nate eventually left the New Orleans metro area on the dry side, and for the most part the 'tropical-strength, wind-less side of the storm.
Nate moved so briskly through the Gulf - about one day from entering to leaving it - that it had little time to gain the strength of the season's earlier storms.
New Orleans residents had stocked up on water and non-perishable foods in advance - cleaning out some grocery shelves and creating lines at gas stations, but in the end there wasn't much to do, but watch TV for the 99 percent of residents who never lost power.
The 7 pm imposed curfew in the city, largely ignored by tourists in town on Bourbon Street, was lifted about 90 minutes after it began.
Landrieu said in a 10 a.m. press conference Sunday that he felt comfortable in the decisions made throughout the night for the public's safety, and the public sometimes doesn't understand the amount of planning involved to make city services ready for a hurricane.
"I'm worried about convenience, but I'm much more worried about life safety issues," said Landrieu.
The city's drainage system, still damaged and at less than full strength, was never really tasked with much. The rain that stormed the city on the Monday before, proving too be much more of a challenge.
What did happen was some inconvenience, and plenty of it. Events, like weddings, were cancelled, moved up or moved to alternate locations. Football games were moved up, but some homecoming activities were rescheduled. Events, festivals, fun-runs and some local theater were also taken off the books and local commerce likely suffered - again, unless you were a grocery store or gas station.
All in all, it was, essentially a 'dry' run for a more dangerous storm. Just how the city and surrounding areas did on the dry run is for those in charge to figure out.