PIERRE PART - Residents like Michael Morales who live in Pierre Part are already preparing for the storm in the gulf even though it may be five days away from landfall.

"Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. We're used to it," Morales said.

He lives next to the bay and isn't expecting too much from the storm.

"A little storm surge, but the water is pretty low right now so I think we'll
alright on that," Morales said.

Assumption Parish Emergency Management Director John Boudreaux is urging residents to start preparing now.

He's preparing for this latest storm to follow the same path Hurricane Andrew did when it hit Assumption Parish almost twenty years ago.

"We know from Hurricane Andrew back in 1992 that we had a lot of damage to homes, mostly trees that took us a year to clean all of that up," Boudreaux said.

Parish officials are also concerned about the area's only emergency shelter at Napoleonville Middle School. The gymnasium usually holds two hundred people, but with COVID-19, that number has been reduced to only space for fifty.

Boudreaux is now trying to identify other buildings that can house people in case of an emergency.