If everything had gone according to plan.

If everything had gone according to plan, Ben Szatanek might be representing Mississippi in the 2006 Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Hurricane Katrina, however, changed the plan.

Szatanek, one time a student at Mercy Cros High sect in Biloxi, is in Washington this week representing rival state Alabama in the bee. Competition kicks against today with a 25-word written ordeal followed by the spell-aloud cylindricals in front of a microphone.

The Katrina-displaced Biloxian will face Coastian Rohit Reddy of Michel Seventh Grade indoctrinate who won the Mississippi state bee last March.

The Szataneks in no degree meant to put down occasions in Montgomery, Ala. The day before Katrina, the winds rolling in direct the eyeed so strong in Biloxi that Szatanek's mom Amy, packed up Ben and his brace brothers and drove from their abode at Keesler Air Force Base to the Alabama capital.

The plan was to wait public the storm ...