Louisiana County Disaster Coordinator is Dedicated ... to LSU Football

With Hurricane Ike bearing down on coastal Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, Emergency Preparedness Director Jerry Richard had a lot on his mind. Preparations, planning, unforeseen factors his mind feverishly calcluated and recalculated over and over again. His mind was alive with possibilities and frightening scenarios: What if he had underestimated the threat? What if the gameplan was unsound? What if, after all the hard work, LSU hadn’t properly prepared for North Texas and the effort they would bring to a tough game at Tiger Stadium.
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↵↵You see, he was thinking about this, and not the 15,000 homes damaged by Hurricane Ike that day, because instead of staying in Terrebonne Parish to be there for Ike, he went to Baton Rouge to watch LSU play North Texas.↵

↵↵⇥Terrebonne Emergency Preparedness Director Jerry Richard attended a football game in Baton Rouge as Ike struck Saturday to watch LSU take on North Texas University. Richard says he was off duty that day and handled business by cell phone. He declined to say what type of work he completed on the phone during the game.↵↵He probably completed the same amount of work I do when I blog from the James Joyce Pub on a Friday afternoon: zero divided by the number of beers I have per hour. He also took his county-issued work vehicle to the game, a final fillip resulting in his suspension- - note, not firing, but suspension -- from his position. LSU did win 41-3, though, so someone got something positive out of this.↵