There will be no official emergency shelters opened in Southwest Louisiana if Hurricane Lili makes landfall near here Thursday.

That's according to Dick Gremillion, director of the Calcasieu Parish Office of Emergency Preparedness.

"Due to funding and the fact that shelters here are in flood zones, the Red Cross and Federal Emergency Management Agency have decided not to open any in our parish or anywhere else along the Gulf coast,"

This is going to be bad, folks. They said they might open them as a last resort, but there will be no supplies of any kind. Over 180,000 live in the Lake Charles area, which lies between 93 and 94W, the area expected to take a direct hit at this time. Hopefully, these people will just plain get out of town for a couple of days.