Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog

By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – Here we are, all the way at the end of September and there has been no Gulf hurricane. The weather-alarmists are in a panic.

And then.

And then, just like that there are now two named storms and areas of low pressure, tropical depression, and my social media feed is filled with spaghetti models and dire predictions of a possible Cat 4 hurricane coming to … where?  Who knows?

But weather-alarmists are happy now, and in full alert mode.

What is it that causes this fascination with storms? Nobody wants a devastating storm. Some of this frenzy goes beyond mere interest-for-preparation-purposes.  It’s very strange.

At any rate, it looks like Florida may be in the crosshairs this time with Ian, and not that I want anything to happen to Florida, but Louisiana is breathing a little sigh of relief. We all know things can change, but at least we don’t see terror right at the moment.

On a related note, you might be interest in checking out my friend Rob Gaudet’s new book: Cajun Navy Ground Force: Citizen-Led Disaster Response. Rob and I became friends back in 2012 when he was working with C.L. Bryant promoting C.L.’s documentary Runaway Slave. The story of the Cajun Navy is amazing and it is probably impossible to count how many lives they’ve saved, homes repaired, or people they’ve helped in various ways. Coordinating this effort is an exhaustive job and Rob does a great job. Get the book!

You don’t ever want to need the help of the Cajun Navy but thank goodness they exist if you do.

As much as I scoff at the weather-alarmists, in Louisiana we are within reason to worry about these storms: our coastline is vanishing at an alarming rate, and a lot of the reason is storm surge made so much worse by human factors. For decades we cut canals through the marsh for energy exploration and as a result the saltwater has encroached and contributed to erosion. It’s much more complicated than that, but the fact remains that we have a problem.

At any rate, as we move on into the hurricane season we keep our eyes to the radar, to the spaghetti models, and we pray. That’s about our best line of defense, it seems.