Mostly, she has focused on two things - teaching third grade at Amanda Elzy Elementary and monitoring when she might be able to return home to Marrero, La., near New Orleans.
She now lives on the campus of Mississippi Valley State University with her husband, Michael, who directs the school's band. However, she doesn't know how long she will remain in Mississippi. The storm didn't damage her home in Marrero, but the schools in Orleans Parish have not opened yet.
"I'd like to go back to New Orleans and work in New Orleans," she said. "But they're very slow opening the schools, and as far as I know, they're not opening a lot of schools. So I really have to wait and see when they're going to call, or if they're going to call me back."
She was teaching pre-kindergarten at McDonogh No. 32 Elementary School, but she doubts that she will have the same job when she returns. She applied for a job in the parish online but has not heard anything back.
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She heard McDonogh didn't sustain much damage, and she has found some general updates on the Internet, but the reopening dates keep being pushed back.
Torregano, 49, has taught for 22 years, mostly in pre-kindergarten, but also has taught kindergarten and first and second grades.
She left her home in Marrero on Aug. 27 - two days before the hurricane hit. "When they said to evacuate, I evacuated," she said.
After the storm, she moved to St. Francisville, La., where her parents live, before relocating to Itta Bena. Her daughter, Jasmine, is a sophomore at Greenwood High School, and her son, Michael Jr., attends Albany State University in Georgia.
Sharita Giles, the principal at Elzy Elementary, said the addition of Torregano has worked out well. The school needed another third-grade teacher, and after Torregano became available, the principal interviewed her.
"I was impressed with the things she had shared with me about her experiences from her hometown," Giles said.
Torregano was able to jump right in at Elzy. She said she adjusted well because she was able to meet with the other teachers and look at the books. She has her own class, but the third-grade teachers work together on planning.
Also, now that she is there, the third-graders get more individual attention because the student-teacher ratio is lower.
"Third grade is the grade where most of the testing is done," she said. "And so the third-grade teachers were more in need of help, and they thought that if they could have smaller class sizes, we could serve and focus in on the needs of the children a little bit more."
She also has attended some Valley ballgames and gone to church with new friends. "The people have been really nice," she said.
But mostly, she is concentrating on working and planning her return home. She has kept in contact with family and watched television reports on the hurricane and its aftermath.
"I watched a lot of it," she said. "In fact, I watched it day in and day out, and my family was telling me, 'Stop watching it so much.'"
Most of her relatives live in the Baton Rouge area, but she has a brother-in-law and sister-in-law in New Orleans. Her brother-in-law lost his home in the storm, she said.
Because Katrina struck so early in the school year, she hadn't gotten to know her pre-kindergarten students yet. "We had done all of the testing before school, and I really hadn't seen my kids except for when they came for the pretest," she said.
But she remembered seeing some of her former students on television, including one girl from last year's class who was reported missing. "That kind of concerned me, and I was wondering if they had found her or not," she said, adding that she still doesn't know the answer.
The severe weather hasn't convinced Torregano to move from Louisiana - at least not yet. "Since my home is intact, I'm going to go back as soon as I can get a position there," she said. "Now maybe later on, down the road, I may think about moving somewhere else. But right now, I'm going to go back."
