Call Him Hurricane Hicks

Gray-haired, pushing-30 Taylor Hicks isn't just an unlikely American Idol; he's an accidental American Idol.

The just-crowned winner of the Fox singing competition told Thursday's Tonight Show with Jay Leno that he ended up in the American Idol audition city of Las Vegas only after Hurricane Katrina blew him there.

It was a story seconded Thursday by one of Hicks' hometown bandmates in Enterprise, Alabama's Southeast Sun.

"He was stranded in New Orleans the day before Hurricane Katrina hit, and ended up paying a taxi to drive him and a friend to northern Mississippi," Mitch Jones, bassist for the Hicks-fronted Little Memphis Blues Orchestra, said in the Southeast Sun.

After Hicks lost his plane ticket, he was granted a new one--to the destination of his choice. The future leader of the Soul Patrol chose Las Vegas on a lark--he'd never been there, he said on the Tonight Show, per reports.

Once in Sin City, as Jones told the Southeast Sun, "[Hicks] happened to see where they were holding an American Idol audition and decided to try."

After thumbs ups from judges Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson (and despite a thumbs down from Simon Cowell), Hicks was on his way to Hollywood, and, eventually, his $1 million Idol recording contract.

A giant-sized Idol audience of 36.4 million watched Hicks claim season five's title Wednesday night. Clive Davis, the franchise's patron music mogul, told the Associated Press he'll be confabbing with Hicks shortly about the singer's debut album.

"He definitely has his own sound," Davis told the Associated Press. "He does have that gift, you know who it is when you hear him."

In other Idol developments:

An alleged stalker of season-four finalist Jessica Sierra is due to be released from a Florida mental-health facility following a 100-day stay, Thursday's St. Petersburg (Florida) Times reported.

Florida authorities decided it was best for the man, Daniel Robert Young, 60, to continue his treatment in his home state of California, the paper said.

Sierra, who finished 10th in the 2005 competition, sounded satisfied.

"I'm glad to hear that he is getting the treatment he needs," Sierra said in a statement to the newspaper. "I am relieved that this situation is behind me now, and I am able to focus my full attention on my music career."

Young was arrested in Tampa, Florida, in January after showing up at the home of Sierra's grandparents. He allegedly had been plying Sierra with unsolicited phone calls and gifts since last fall. He faces a charge of misdemeanor stalking, the St. Petersburg Times said.

In California, a rat is being blamed for denying 9,500 Riverside County customers power, and, in the process, access to Tuesday night's Idol, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reported Thursday.

The rodent chewed through equipment at a power station just before the 8 p.m. airtime for Hicks' and Katharine McPhee's decisive sing-off.

"I was at my sister's house and the TV went 'Poof!'--right before Idol," resident Linda Rochbacker told the paper.

The rat paid the ultimate price for his crime. Said local power official Steve Badgett to the Press-Enteprise: "We found him. What was left of him."

Riverside blackout or no, Tuesday's Idol was watched by an estimated 30.6 million.

Meat Loaf felt as if he had "an alien busting out [of] my chest" when he performed "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" with McPhee on Wednesday's finale, and, after, "cr[ied] like a baby," the A.P. reported. Loaf said he has stage fright, and, accordingly, has no memory of the duet. Which probably leaves him in the same boat as the Clay Aiken look-alike.

Randy Jackson could have more credits to drop on Idol next season. Mariah Carey has said she wants her old music director on the road with her this summer, according to the A.P. Carey's "The Adventures of Mimi: The Voice, The Hits, The Tour" is scheduled to run August-October.