Before the 2009 Hurricane Season ends, another “H” time – Hunting Season – is kicking off.  And while the former is clearly the more dangerous, the same rules apply: Preparation is a far better option than recovery.

                  Bow-Hunting, or Archery Season opened Oct. 1, and Small Game Season opened two days later, launching what is among the busiest times of year for agents of the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

                  “Our primary function is to protect the natural resources of the state,” said Sgt. Darryl Galloway, a Wildlife Enforcement Agent with the Wildlife and Fisheries agency.  “But we don’t just enforce the law; we try to educate people.”

                  That education includes passing on knowledge of basic hunting safety to hunters of all ages.  To that end, Galloway and his colleagues work to ensure that hunters are properly trained – not only in the use of firearms and other hunting weaponry but in personal safety, as well.  The state offers a hunter safety course that is, in fact, mandatory for most sportsmen (and women, of course).  “Any person born after Sept. 1, 1969, has to complete the course,” Galloway said.  “All 50 states now require some form of mandatory hunter education.”

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            Anybody remember Mrs. Fletcher? “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” Was it ever that easy?

            On the northshore, ambulance service providers respond to thousands of calls each year. A combination of “routine” medical emergencies such as heart attacks, severe falls, motor vehicle accidents, and simple “transport” runs to doctor visits, keep the companies, public agencies – and the employees who staff them – busy from dawn ‘til dusk, 24/7/365.

            By far the largest provider of ambulance service in St. Tammany and Tangipahoa Parishes is the Lafayette-based Acadian Ambulance. “Acadian Ambulance began in 1971 in Lafayette parish with two ambulances and eight team members,” said Danny Lennie, Vice President of Operations for Acadian.  “Today we serve 38 parishes/counties in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.  We now have over 2,600 team members and transport approximately 1,000 patients per day.”

            “We began operations in Tangipahoa in 1982 with three ambulances...

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For a time, it seemed the only construction activity happening on the northshore was residential, as builders adapted to accommodate the inundation of new residents in late 2005 and 2006. As that market maxed out, you couldn’t drive more than a few miles hereabouts without witnessing the construction of commercial space – offices, restaurants, banks, hotels, and retail centers – being rapidly constructed to accommodate those businesses serving the newly expanded population.

Then came 2008. Things changed, and they changed fast. The “housing bubble” finally burst nationwide. The sub-prime mortgages collapsed and, although they represented only three percent of mortgages nationwide (and a mere pittance in Louisiana), the banking industry went into full-scale panic. Credit lines were frozen or taken away. Mortgage loans became scarce, as did financing of virtually every kind. Retail space sat – and sits – empty.  National chains such as Circuit City started closing – for good. Homebuilders in particular...

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With more than 900 miles of navigable waterways – more than any parish in Louisiana – St. Tammany is a natural place for water recreation, particularly in summer months. But when you hop on your Jet Ski, sailboat or even just your fishing skiff, officials say the rules of safety still apply.

At the St. Tammany Sheriff’s Office , Capt. Pat McLaney commands the Marine Enforcement unit within the Operations Division, overseeing a staff of 13 law enforcement professionals. Their job – and it’s a big one – is to patrol the waterways of the parish in search of safety violators, search for missing persons on the water and, most importantly, to keep people safe.

“We have six patrol boats in the waterways of St. Tammany, spread throughout the Parish,” McLaney said. “They are also responsible for search and rescue on waterways.”

Unlike the deputies who patrol the streets, Marine Enforcement deputies don’t work in the finite enforcement area of natural boundaries or even the yellow and white...

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Once in the realm of science fiction, modern medicine has achieved advances beyond what people imagined only a few decades ago. If it’s true, as is often said, that there have been more technological advances in the last 100 years than in the previous millennium, a good portion of those advances have been in the identification and treatment of disease.

At northshore medical facilities, the enhancement of technology and staffing in recent years has given patients and their healthcare providers increasingly advanced options for non-invasive diagnostic tests.

“When you say ‘diagnostic imaging,’ it includes general X-ray, ultrasound, CT, MRI, mammography, PET/CT, and bone density studies,” said JoAnn Forsyth, director of M.D. Imaging in Slidell, where all of those procedures are performed.

“Our first order of business is diagnostics,” said Pat Maltese, head of the radiology department at St. Tammany Parish Hospital. “A patient presents with a complaint. The (diagnostic) exam allows us...

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Tired of hearing about the economy and how it is supposed to affect us but isn’t? Then skip this story.

It’s almost natural to assume, given the gloom and doom of recent media reports, that folks are cutting back on luxury spending. But if you subscribe to that line of thinking, you’re probably not an avid northshore golfer.

Membership and attendance at northshore golf courses is healthy and steady, and no one seems to expect that to change. While the costs of the game vary widely depending on where you choose to play, devotees seem far from ready to hang up their clubs and fire their caddies.

At Hammond’s Oak Knoll Country Club, 340 members participate in golf outings. With a $250 initiation fee and $130 a month for family membership – a rate that drops by 50 percent for members who live outside a 30-mile radius – the club is, in fact, growing.

“That’s a gradual increase over the last few months,” said Jake Narro, PGA Head Golf Professional at the Club.  “We haven’t seen a...

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Water recreation is as much a part of Louisiana culture as crawfish and corruption. Local marina owners and boating retailers say the market for watercraft and bayou bank parking spaces remains steady, if slow. In fact, from marinas renting slips and providing fuel for boaters to retail sales lots with a wide array of boats to buy, business is in a very good place.

“We sell and service Honda outboard motors,” said Mary Eirich, owner of Slidell Marine, Inc., on Old Bayou Liberty Road. “We sell pontoon boats. We also have a restaurant and a ship store that sells boating and fishing supplies. We also sell fuel.”

Fuel, in fact, is an increasingly difficult commodity for boaters to find at marinas, Eirich said.

“There are fewer and fewer,” Eirich said. “After Katrina, a lot opted not to re-open.”

Eirich, however, got into the marina business after Katrina, as she and her husband expanded their holdings of Cypress Cove Boating Center on Pontchartrain Drive to include Slidell Marine. And...

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Following the worst natural disaster in United States history – the small matter of a killer storm that starts with a “K” – the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) set out to redo its flood elevation maps. The results have raised ire and confusion, and could imperil the ability of local residents to get flood insurance at all.

Flood insurance is a complicated issue. Since private insurance carriers will no longer offer it in homeowner’s policies, the federal government stepped in with the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). NFIP rates are based on flood zones. Flood zones are based on Base Flood Elevations (BFEs). BFEs are established by FEMA. Follow all that? In short – or in alphabet soup – to get NFIP you have to reference the BFEs established by FEMA. 

Adding another step, the BFEs have to be adopted by local governments – city or parish councils, for example – before NFIP will or can remain in effect.

NOW do you get it?

Not if you’re lucky. Coastal St. Tammany...

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Expecting house guests this summer? Better hope their names aren’t Ana, Bill, Claudette or Danny. Erika, Fred, Grace and Henri can stay away, too. And let’s just hope we never come anywhere close to seeing Wanda.

The 2009 storm names are an ominous guest list of visitors we might expect – and hope not to – during the June 1 through November 30 Hurricane Season.

The very notion of “Hurricane Season” can bring a mix of emotions, long before the first clouds start swirling in the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico. For some, memories of Hurricane Katrina are too painful to remember. For others, denial is the preferred emotion. But for anyone who used to think “it can’t happen here,” there are memorials and ceremonies every August 29 to say different.

Professional prognosticators who specialize in storm season predictions are saying 2009 will be an “average” season. Scientists at the University of Colorado’s Department of Atmospheric Science start issuing predictions each December and update the forecast as the season nears and then progresses. According to the April 7, 2009, update, things shouldn’t be that bad this year.

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 Bailouts and buyouts, bulls and bears, bubbles and bandits, failures and foreclosures. Been watching the news lately? It’s all you hear. But local banks say the time is ripe for businesses to start or expand.

 When the “housing bubble burst” back in late 2007, investors started to worry and developers began to hurt. When gas prices soared in summer 2008, things got a little hairy. When the credit market constricted last year and the stock market fell to record lows, folks started to run scared. And when, finally, we were officially declared “in a recession,” it seemed like everyone’s worst fears were coming true.

 Soon, the fear suggested, we’d all be unemployed, banks would foreclose on every home in the country before collapsing in on themselves, and soup kitchens would replace grocery stores and restaurants.

 It was a sad time.

 But it was also a lot of hooey, at least – or especially – in southeast Louisiana.

 “Businesses in Louisiana are faring better than businesses...

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Recession woes are everywhere and folks are cutting back on luxury spending, right? Wrong. An economic downturn, while having a negative impact on certain market sectors, is also having the ancillary effect of pumping some businesses in the upward direction. “Pumping,” in fact, may be a very suitable word, since swimming pool sales are brisk not in spite of but in response to fears of recession.

Huh?

Turns out that instead of spending money on expensive trips or big-ticket items that lose value (like cars and trucks), folks are investing in home improvement projects and taking “stay-cations” in their own backyards instead of vacations at exotic resorts. “I’ve been busy for a couple of months,” said Chris Tartamella, owner of Caribbean Pool and Patio in Hammond. “If you want your pool in for Memorial Day, you need to shop early.”

“The temperatures have been a bit low, but things are good,” said Evi Jeansonne, co-owner of Pools and Stuff in Slidell. “Busy season just started.” “Business...

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It’s no secret that the real estate market hereabouts has been through an upheaval-and-a-half in recent years. Once the bedrock of the northshore economy, homebuilding has become a struggling sector. The housing market, though, is more than just black or white.

Modular homes, built indoors and then trucked to a home site, became all the rage post-Katrina. Now, they’re barely a ripple in the local housing pond.

“Many people confuse manufactured housing, or trailers, with modular homes,” said Ben Kirk, director of government affairs for the St. Tammany and Washington Parish Homebuilders Association.

Modular homes don’t look like mobile homes, or trailer homes, or what are now called “manufactured homes” – at least not once they’re installed. They are built in factories so the materials are never exposed to the elements. Then they’re placed onto trucks in modules and assembled on the prepared home site.

When modular homes hit their peak after Katrina, it was largely due to the...

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Since voters decided that in odd-numbered years legislators could only tackle fiscal issues – that is, those dealing with taxes, appropriations, and other financial matters – the balance of things has shifted. Unlike even-numbered sessions such as last year’s when thousands of bills were filed, this year brings a modest 1,129 bills as of press time. Representatives have brought 857 legislative instruments, and Senators have initiated 322.

But here’s the kicker: Even in “fiscal-only” years, each legislator can still file five non-fiscal bills. 

The race to encumber those bills is fierce, with special interests, constituents and others trying to lock down legislators early, seeking pledges to give a non-fiscal bill to this cause or that.

While money, money and money are the order of the day this year – particularly as Governor Bobby Jindal has declared a financial crisis requiring the trimming of billions from the state’s budget – there’s still plenty of non-fiscal drama to go around,...

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“When you mention chiropractors, people often think one of two things – ‘back’ or ‘quack,’” said Dr. Dale Rollette of the Rollette Chiropractic Center in Hammond.

And, indeed, the good doctor may be correct. Chiropractic care has only been legalized in Louisiana since the mid 1970s, long after many states adopted laws to regulate the practitioners of vertebral realignment long said to ease discomfort in the joints and promote better health. Lingering prejudices against the profession kept many insurance companies from compensating chiropractors for their services for many years, but times have changed.

“The nervous system controls every function of the body, and if there’s an interruption in the messages from the brain to other parts of the body due to misalignment, the patient will be more susceptible to disease or pain,” said Dr. Nancy Dominick-Gravel of Care Chiropractic in Mandeville. 

The science behind chiropractic theory and treatment is relatively simple, as Dominick-Gravel...

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If you live in St. Tammany Parish and haven’t gotten an email in the last month asking you to sign a petition to raise the homestead exemption… well… then you probably haven’t checked your email.

For weeks, an online petition has been circulating with a promise that at 5,000 signatures it will be forwarded to every member of the Legislature. The goal of the petition is to raise the Homestead Exemption – long set at $75,000 – to more than double that amount, a step that would require a constitutional amendment and that would result in no small amount of angst for local taxing authorities. It’s also not all it’s cracked up to be.