French Quarter retailers disappointed, had hoped storm would eradicate urine odor that permeates Bourbon Street.NEW ORLEANS - The National Hurricane Center admitted its prediction that a massive hurricane would make a direct hit on New Orleans turned out to be a mistake caused by the spittle of a space shuttle astronaut on the lens of an NOAA satellite camera. The satellite image produced by the spittle-covered lens looked exactly like a monstrous hurricane on a ferocious romp through the Gulf of Mexico. In reality, it was nothing more than ordinary human saliva.
A relieved New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin rescinded his evacuation order that sent hundreds of thousands of Big Easy residents cramming Interstate 10 to escape a storm that many feared would be the biggest the city had ever seen.
Mayor Nagin explained that the spittle found its way on the satellite camera when the satellite was repaired during a space shuttle mission last year. "Not to get overly technical about it, but see, saliva doesn't evaporate in the unforgiving, icy cold of outer space," explained the Mayor.
Plywood merchants were openly disappointed by the news since it stopped countless building owners from boarding up their windows as protection from the putative storm. Hadley V. Baxendale, president of New Orleans Lumber Company, admitted that plywood "is the last thing I'd put on my house if a hurricane was coming. It could only make matters worse." But he quickly added that "I'm not in the business of debunking urban myths, so if people want to buy their plywood, who am I to stop them?" Baxendale smiled, "Anyway, the hurricane season is still young."
