Remember: 'The first 72 are on you!'

Don't let a few cooler nights fool you. Hurricane season is far from over. It does not officially end until the end of November.
There's a lot of weather between now and then. So stay prepared.
As the cover of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency's hurricane preparedness guide proclaims in large, red letters: "The first 72 are on you!"
What that means - and what every coastal resident in America must be made to understand - is that anyone who chooses not to evacuate from the path of an approaching hurricane should have enough supplies to sustain themselves for at least three days after a storm makes landfall.
This is not because government officials and disaster relief agencies are heartless or lazy.
As South Mississippians learned in the days and weeks after Katrina, it takes time to respond to an emergency. It takes time to locate those in need. It takes time to restore electricity and phone service. It take time to resupply stores and gas stations and for those who did evacuate to return to their jobs.
All the sympathy in the world will not make life less miserable after a disaster.
That's why being prepared is far better than being pitied.
Summer has now turned to autumn, but it is still hurricane season.

Allen Roark
Individual Assistance Specialist
Mississippi Emergency Management Agency

Reprinted from the Sun Herald, September 23, 2008