NATCHEZ &045; Anna Watts was only 9 years old when Hurricane Betsy blew into Natchez, and her most vivid memory is of the smell.

&uot;We had a swimming pool and I remember when the eye came over, we went outside and there were 50 frogs in the pool,&uot; she said.

Her brother collected the frogs and put them in an old coffee can, replete with air holes.

&uot;He had those frogs for eight months and I still remember that smell, a terrible smell coming out of his room,&uot; she said.

Finally, they traced the smell to the old CDM can and the expired frogs. &uot;It was awful,&uot; Watts said.

Betsy brought trees down and damaged property, but nothing like what happened down south.

Ron Chapman was in New Orleans for Camille four years later and volunteered on the Gulf coast in the aftermath.

The horror he saw and the many near misses in the last several years, one of which saw him staying at shady motel in Arkansas, led him to buy a house in Natchez for hurricane season.

&uot;This Memorial Day, I said, this is not going to happen to me again,&uot; Chapman said.

Chapman’s wife grew up in Natchez, so they came and started looking at houses.

&uot;We rushed (moving) because of Hurricane Dennis, we were still loading stuff up here when this thing hit. So I ran home, boarded up the house, got another load of stuff, grabbed my mother-in-law and shot up here.&uot;

Chapman and his family love their home away from hurricane and figure that, no matter how badly Natchez gets hit by Katrina, it won’t be anything like what it does to New Orleans.

&uot;If this thing is bigger than Camille, I’ve seen the destruction Camille did, and New Orleans is dead.&uot;