BATON ROUGE ? Hurricane Lili was the storm for which Greg Stone had been waiting.

Stone is director of the Wave-

Current-Surge Information System at the LSU Coastal Studies Institute. The center has a system of stations in place in the Gulf of Mexico and along the Gulf Coast to measure a storm?s wave height, surge and wind speed. The stations send the data back to LSU via satellite. LSU, in turn, provides the information to state emergency officials.

All that was missing was a storm. Six months ago today, Mother Nature obliged.

?We were able to supply the state with real-time information as the storm surge began to build

up,? Stone said Wednesday. ?That is the applied aspect of the program.?

After the storm hit land and dissipated, the center began dissecting the information in ?a more relaxed environment.?

The data surprised them. Stations in Freshwater Bayou in Vermilion Parish and 100 miles away in coastal Terrebonne Parish recorded the same wave height ? 4 feet to 5 feet. The one common factor between the two locations, he said, was the large amount of mud deposits in the Gulf water. The storm surge also was identical.

?That mud did a lot to dampen wave energy and keep the storm surge from being considerably higher,? Stone said. ?(Lili) was a wonderful test for us.?

The center is working to speed the transfer of data from the stations to LSU, Stone said.

?It?s grist for the mill in terms of building a more powerful measuring system offshore that can give us advanced warning.?