I just wanted to thank everyone who said prayers for the people that were in the path of Gustav. As one of the TV people here said, thanks to all the Christians for all the prayers because they sure seem to have worked!

Life in ALL parts of Louisiana are slowly getting back to normal despite what you see on CNN and some of the other networks. 99.5% of the people here planned ahead for a storm that we thought would be much worse than it actually turned out to be. The big joke in this area is that we all bought so much food, drink and got so much ice that now we need to throw a party that includes a huge BBQ. The people that you see on TV that don’t have food or ice are those that either failed to plan, or they planned and are just taking advantage of what is being offered.

Contrary to what you see on TV, we are thankful for the people who came in with the 750 buses to take our people to safety. Less than 1 percent will complain about the lack of A/C on a school bus when the other option was to stay behind in a major hurricane. Many of us housed people from the southernmost portion of the state, and they slept on floors with no pillows and when the power went out they had no A/C, but they were happy to be safe. The people who you see complaining on TV are in the category of people that think the state/feds should put them up at a Hilton, and they do not represent the thankfulness of the people of our state.

In most school systems we go back on Monday, and some even went back today. There are only two in our area that are out for all of next week, and Evangeline parish is out until further notice. That was an area that was not expected to get hit hard, but they really got bashed.

Please pray for the people in the Baton Rouge area. When New Orleans was spared a lot of damage many of the networks packed up and went home reporting that Louisiana was spared a hard hit. The truth is that the areas between Baton Rouge and Houma took terrible hits, as did Evangeline, but they are picking themselves up and moving toward life as usual.

One thing that people don’t talk about in the national media after a storm is the brotherhood that is brought about after a storm. Whether it is helping a neighbor pick up their yard, sharing your home with someone who is still out of their home due to damage, lending someone you don’t know your chain saw, or people showing up in mass numbers to help clean-up the schools and churches – the storm actually brings people closer together. The people in hurricane country have been through many of these storms and they will always come through a little stronger than they were before .

The people in this area will never be able to adequately thank the people from other parts of the country who sent husbands, wives, sons and daughters to help provide medical service, or to put up electrical wires to restore service, or to open shelters, or help us in hundreds of other ways. There is no way that we can ever than the people from the entire nation for the generosity shown after Andrew, Lily, Katrina, Rita, and now Gustav, and that covers just the past few years.

So as we slowly return to normal, know how much we appreciate what everyone has done for us, and also know that we are thankful that God spared us from another huge storm. Keep your thoughts and prayers coming for the people who did lose their lives in this storm, and pray for their families.

Dave