L’Observateur / September 7, 1999

While Hurricane Dennis pounded the East Coast, especially North Carolina, south Louisiana TV stations rightly gave it a lot of on-air time – for good reason. It can still happen here.People continue to pour into the River Parishes, straining the existing infrastructure, including roads, utilities and emergency planning.

Evacuation plans need to be updated to include totally new subdivisions which didn’t exist a year ago. Traffic plans for such evacuations likewiseneed to be undated to insure that if we must be ordered out, we can do so quickly and efficiently.

Many newcomers to the River Parishes also must become acquainted with the standard practices we as lifelong residents have always known. If youhave a new neighbor, especially one from outside the area, make sure they know to get bottled water, canned goods, charcoal and/or bottled gas, radios and batteries, lamps and lamp oil, have ample prescription medication for an extended time and secure their pets.

Help them know the places to go for plywood to board up their windows and help them board, as they help you. Help each other with sandbags. Worktogether as friends, as neighbors, to safeguard each others’ lives and property.

The most valuable thing during hurricane season isn’t batteries or plywood – it’s knowledge and experience. We have experience here of past stormssuch as Betsy and Andrew. We’ve learned which meteorologists areprofessional and knowledgeable and which are alarmist. Share thatknowledge and help each other stay safe and calm in the face of an impending storm.

We are in the midst of an already-busy hurricane season, and the odds are good that one will enter the Gulf of Mexico and threaten Louisiana. Whilewe are deluged with information about safeguarding our lives and property, we should also feel obligated to look out for each other.

Is there a shut-in senior citizen on your block? Make sure that person will be safe and help them in whatever way you can. Is there a young singleparent feeling overwhelmed by the need to prepare for a storm in your neighborhood? Help that person with meeting their obligations.

A hurricane is something which threatens a large group of people, all at once. It is by working together as a community to help one another that wecan best weather the storm. If such a storm does strike here, it will be bythese same neighbors working together that we can quickly recover.

A hurricane does not discriminate against black or white, homeowner or mobile home renter, old or young, rich or poor, housing tenant or country- club dweller, lifelong resident or newcomer. High winds and destructivefloodwaters can devastate any and all of us.

However, working together, we can unify as a community in the face of danger. Help your family and friends, certainly, but also help yourneighbors That’s what we do when we shine, as a community as a whole and as human beings. It’s just a shame it sometimes takes a disaster to bring ustogether. We can’t afford a disaster every year.We can afford to spend kindness with our neighbors.

Copyright © 1998, Wick Communications, Inc.

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