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THERE IS A big difference between issuing a warning and crying wolf.

Last week, for example, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin watched Hurricane Gustav churn through the Gulf of Mexico and declared, "This is the mother of all storms!"

That statement, we now know, turned out to be false. Gustav was a formidable force when it hit the Louisiana coast, but it was far from the "mother of all storms."

Andrew, Camille, Agnes, the Galveston hurricane of 1900, the Labor Day hurricane of 1935, the New England hurricane of 1938 and Katrina--they were all far more potent than Gustav.

Nagin's "mother of all storms" declaration was designed, of course, to throw a scare into the inhabitants of New Orleans and get them out of the city. It worked.

But will they leave the next time "the mother of all storms" is declared to be on the horizon?

I doubt it.

In overstating the likely effects of Gustav, Nagin frightened the people into abandoning the city. He cried "wolf!" and the wolf didn't show up. A growling dog, maybe, but certainly not a wolf. Katrina was the Crescent City's wolf.

Nagin's reasoning was clear. He didn't want another disaster like Katrina and that is understandable.

But government also must give the public some credit for brains. Like Nagin, Katrina was fresh on the minds of everyone in New Orleans and no one was interested in going through a similar ordeal with Gustav.

The fact that the city provided transportation for folks to leave should be applauded. That Nagin declared Gustav to be "the mother of all storms" may lead only to future disasters.

History is likely to show that Katrina was a fluke, a once-in-a-lifetime event.

In time, another devastating hurricane will almost certainly hit New Orleans. That event, however, may be so far removed that those who face the future storm may not have been born in 2005 when Katrina hit.

The 1900 Galveston hurricane, which killed more than 6,000 people, is a good example. There has not been another such storm to hit that island city in 108 years. All those who were there at the turn of the 20th century are now dead.