La. Commissioner 'sickened' by Katrina's path of destruction.

When reports started streaming in, telling of a Category 5 hurricane that was headed for the coast of Louisiana, state Insurance Commissioner J. Robert Wooley hoped for the best.

For one, the storm appeared to be veering east of New Orleans, a city, that sits below sea level and has a population of 1 million people. Besides, the levees protecting the bowl-shaped Big Easy from waters of the Mississippi River to the east and Lake Pontchar-train to the west had certainly with-stood similar amounts of rainfall in the past. "We knew we sustained that before and had no severe flooding," Wooley said.

With this in mind, and worried that two sycamore trees flanking his Baton Rouge home might come crashing down in hurricane-force winds, risking the lives of his loved ones, Wooley on Aug. 28 packed his wife, Julie, and their three small children into the family car and headed to his sister-in-law's house 50 miles away in Lafayette.

"It was far enough to be out of the storm and close enough to get back here where I would be needed," Wooley said.

After the storm, he saw the pictures that were being broadcast worldwide. On the television screen was aerial footage showing widespread flooding, from New Orleans to Plaquemines. "I thought we had dodged the bullet, but when I saw the pictures, I was sickened," he said.

Wooley knew action needed to be taken. Absent telephone service, he trekked down to the Louisiana Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness office, stood before three television cameras and took interviews from two newspaper reporters, urging any insurance department employee who could hear his voice to please return to work. By Aug. 31, his office in Baton Rouge was open for business, with two-thirds of his staff reporting.

The first order of business was to contact the largest insurers in the state to learn of their recovery plans.