There is more than New Orleans and the oil spill in a storm

Once again it is time not to panic, not to fret, not to stick your head in the sand, not to freak out. But just look and listen if you live along the Gulf Coast. Tropical Depression 3 may soon become Tropical Storm Bonnie, or not. It may even become Hurricane Bonnie, or not. All of this is not to be confused with Hurricane Bonnie that hit North Carolina in August 1998, inflicting more than $1 billion in damage, if you believe Wikpedia.

Now a lot of the weather forecasters, including the most always careful National Hurricane Center, do not have a lot of high expectations for what is now called TD 3. That’s a good thing, Martha. There is all that oil there in the Central Gulf floating around that the national media seems transfixed upon. Okay, that is a low blow. I too am concerned about the oil and the attempt to permanently stop the leak and get the mega mess cleaned up. It just seems the national media never really shows the concern that they should for the not so sexy spots on the map. That is, they don’t pay attention to it until a hurricane comes and gives a good shot for an anchor to do a “Dan Rather” and perform the now highly-cliched exercise of standing in a wind that is potent enough to knock one down.

Hey, there are people out there in places other than New Orleans! Cameron, La., was obliterated 53 years ago. The National Weather Service in Lake Charles now puts the total deaths at 500. The unknown toll has teetered between 300-500 for years. Audrey came in with a 12-foot  storm surge on the town some three feet above sea level with winds gusts estimated at 150 mph.

Some 50 years later, Hurricane Rita socked the little town and parish seat of Cameron once again with a storm surge of around 12 feet and with 100-mph winds in tow. The death toll has always been screwy with Rita but one report said one person died in Cameron. Nevertheless, from one who visited not long afterward, little stood there after Rita other than the Cameron Parish Courthouse.

As was the case with Rita, the 1,200-some odd residents of Cameron had long ago learned when a hurricane is coming, there is no reason under the sun you can’t see to stick around. So when Ike once again flattened Cameron in 2008 with massive 22-feet tidal surges, folks got out of its way.

Cameron is only one town. There were many others in the path of Rita and Ike and Gustav and Katrina and on and on. I just picked Cameron because I visited it for a vacation day less than a year after Rita slammed it.  I sat around on a rainy, cold afternoon at some bar in the tiny downtown Cameron — impressed that it had more than one bar — that disappeared after Rita, listening that afternoon, laughing and drinking some beers with a bunch of aging Cajun men and later with a dazzling Acadian lady who was probably the best looking woman in Cameron. Then, I visited that same place a year later for a story I was writing and saw very little I knew that remained of this pleasant little place I had once visited other than the big, old courthouse which seemed to be perched up on a hill, if you can call three or four feet a hill.

TD 3 may not be much more than it now is. It may be a tropical storm, which is what a lot of the models seem to predict. It seems headed for the middle Louisiana coast, although some models put the center of the storm landing around Cameron or Sabine Pass, Texas. The latter of which is about 45 miles north of where I live.

But as I have said and have said again, now with experience, tropical weather flare-ups seldom go where they are supposed to go. They also sometime do what they aren’t supposed to do. I say that not to scare anyone, nor to make it look as if I am smack dab in the middle of danger, like I have been before with a couple of these storms. I am just saying what I am just saying. It’s hurricane season, ya’ll. Time to keep heads up. Crank up the old The Clash CD and fixate on “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” and dance around until you have a plan in case things start getting nasty.

Does that sound like a plan?