"We live in Mandeville, Louisiana, thirty minutes to the north of New Orleans," writes Ginny Saxton. "We left for a trip to Medugorje the Saturday before the storm hit Louisiana. We closed our storm shutters, my husband kissed the brown Scapular hanging on the inside of our front door, and we left for the airport. Despite the destruction of many homes in our area due to tree damage, our house was spared. We lost three trees which all fell away from our home, and not a leaf is on our roof. God has been very good to us. We understand from the visionary Ivan Dragicevic in Medugorje that Our Lady said she is praying for the victims of the Hurricane."

If it's God's Will, if there is an opening in His plan for it, the prayers and the sacramental protection click into action. We have to pray -- and take protective measures -- to know.

It worked for a friend of ours in Gulfport named Bob Sawyer.

He stayed through Katrina. He had also stayed through Hurricane Camille back in 1969 -- watching as a steel mailbox was suspended in mid-air and rotated in the wind.

He believes Katrina was stronger -- perhaps not the same barometric pressure and perhaps 145 mile-an-hour winds most of the time (the official clocked speed) -- but in his estimate often going up to the 175 mile-an-hour force he remembered with Camille and perhaps embedded with tornados.

His home is only three miles from the Gulf and a hundred yards from the bay. It should have been flooded, correct?

Bob had just had it blessed and holy oil placed around the doors and his was one of the few homes in his area that didn't have substantial flood damage.

Shingles missing, yes; but no massive destruction in this town that he says looks like a napalm bomb hit it. "There are 18-wheelers full of dead bodies," reported Bob, a stockbroker, when we finally reached him yesterday.

"It was intense from 5:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. We have a brick house but we got scared and got in the hallway. From what I could tell it was a category-five -- absolutely, worse than Camille ever was. I want to stress that we prayed and prayed in that hallway. We prayed the Rosary."

He did lose his office down near the casinos but he is upbeat -- ready to start again -- because he is looking upward.

From a report we have received in Gretna, on the west back of New Orleans, relics were placed on the four corners of property in accordance with a "homeowner's kit" that they believe invokes St. Michael to come down, place down his sword, and strike up an invisible "holy fire of protection" around the home. 

Reports another viewer: "I met someone who told me his brother lives in Biloxi and evacuated their house and as they left said to a statue of Our Lady in the backyard, 'dear Blessed Mother, please protect our house,' a simple prayer, and when they flew over a few days later, all the homes were obliterated but their home was standing and missing only three shingles and Our Lady was still standing beautifully in the back,"

Before Katrina hit New Orleans, it had swept over southern Florida, and there in Palmetto Bay is viewer Mariana Thrailkill, who prayed for protection during Adoration, invoking Our Lady of Prompt Succor (the original statue of which has survived in New Orleans).

"We had large downed trees in my front yard that ended up in my driveway, and my neighbor's tree cracked in half and fell over the fence," says Mariana. "Incredible as it may seem, however, my small St. Francis in the front yard was not even remotely askew. The backyard has a bust of Our Lady cradling the Infant Jesus. The steel arch with flowering vines that was over Our Lady was knocked over yet the statue of Our Lady had not moved an inch.

"Our street had no flooding whatsoever! The first house on our street (there are only about ten) has a statue of Our Lady of Grace on the porch, my neighbor on the left has the same one, and my wonderful Greek Orthodox neighbors have a home brimming with lovely icons. I have a nine week old, and both neighbors are expecting babies and have small children. We all have electricity yet two doors down the residents did not. Some people might  think this coincidental but we all believe it was not. My neighbor Karen commented that she thought God knew that this block respected Him."

And so we see what real "hurricane protection" is.

Yes, shutter your homes, and yes, take prudent precautions -- but pray and you do not have to fear.

As for Jason M. O'Toole of Conyers, Georgia, the miracle was more roundabout but perhaps no less dramatic. He had tried -- and tried -- to relocate to the Big Easy but he just wasn't able to sell his home.

"At the end of 2004, I was promoted to District Manager in New Orleans, overseeing all duty stations in Mississippi," says Jason, who works for the United States Investigations Services.