It’s storm season - let’s be prepared

The sidewalks and boardwalks of the Delaware resort towns teemed this week with people. Sussex County's No. 2 economic driver – tourism – is in high gear. Tom Ibach, whose Dolle's caramel corn and saltwater taffy operation anchors one of Rehoboth's most visible corners, said the summer has been peculiar. “June was uncharacteristically strong but then the heat of July seemed to hold things down. We're keeping our fingers crossed for a good August.” As if to answer his concern, at 9:30 Wednesday night there was a steady flow of people on the Boardwalk, edge to edge, and filling the sidewalks on both sides of Rehoboth Avenue.

And here comes August, with its puffier clouds and lower humidity. The last few weeks of the high season, before kids start heading back to school and sports camps, offer the chance to show off to the greatest number of people the hospitality that keeps people coming back.

That hospitality and helpfulness, along with the pride that shows in the cleanliness of our towns and beaches and the pleasant professionalism of our lifeguards, police officers and paramedics, has become a real hallmark of the Sussex County culture. That culture goes a long way toward helping ensure that strong summers turn into strong falls and that tourism will only grow stronger as a clean economic driver for us.

Experience and tradition have prepared us to keep hospitality going. There's another area of preparation that experience and tradition haven't prepared us as much for: the strong storms and hurricanes that can devil us now and into the winter. Higher ocean temperatures, as we are having this year, can serve as strengthening magnets for hurricanes, especially as climate change trends us toward more volatile weather. Last summer a hurricane warning shut down our resort businesses for a full weekend at the height of the season.

Now is the time to have plans in place, for private and public entities, so we can minimize the impacts of whatever storms blow our way in this dynamic coastal world.