I’ve covered countless NFL preseason games over the years. Most of them, I’ve long since forgotten.

But I’ll never forget the one I covered on Friday, Aug. 26, 2005.

The exhibition game between the Saints and Baltimore Ravens at the Superdome seemed just like any other. At the time, Hurricane Katrina was largely out of sight and out of mind. Few New Orleanians paid more than casual attention to the storm as it swept across south Florida earlier in the day.

As tropical storms go, it was relatively weak, a Category 1 with 75 m.p.h. winds. And while it had hammered Florida and killed nine people in the north Miami area less than 24 hours earlier, Katrina didn’t even merit a front-page story in Friday morning’s Times-Picayune.

Less than three days before the storm would make landfall, thos

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