Columns

The beginning of the offshore oil industry is commonly dated to the completion of a Kerr-McGee well south of Morgan City in November 1947, but drillers brought in the first well in the Gulf almost a decade before that, in the middle of March 1938.
Humble Oil drilled that well at the end of a pier stretching a mile into the water from McFadden Beach, south of Port Arthur. A railroad spur ran down the middle of the pier and was used to bring men and supplies to the drilling rig at its end.

The weather always changes. Today’s weather never lasts indefinitely. Life works the same way in that the only constant is change. Although weather reports are handy, they can be wrong. You need to be prepared for changing scenarios, which are often unpredictable.
You have to deal with today’s weather, while being prepared for tomorrow. Since the weather fluctuates, you have accumulated the necessary resources for a variety of situations: raincoats, jackets, boots, gloves, hats, and shorts.

As we found out again this year, in south Louisiana we are more likely to have a White Valentine’s Day than a White Christmas. Records show that most of our substantial snowfalls over the last century or so have been in February.
This year’s snow began on the day after Valentine’s Day, but the cold snap that preceded it — and lingered way too long afterward — was here well in time to freeze creamy chocolates and wilt red roses.
But that’s not the first time it’s happened. The snowfall that set still-standing records in south Louisiana began on Valentine’s Day 1895.