All of us want to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner this year, but without the proper food preparation steps, you could be setting yourself up for a foodborne illness. More from Dave Brannen.
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Local Christmas tree farmers say this season is shaping up to be their busiest ever. Brooke Thorington explains.
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With folks preparing to fix their Thanksgiving meals, the USDA’s Meredith Caruthers outlines some safety protocols to stick to during the process. Two of them deal with cleaning and separating.
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She also advises to heed the cooking directions and then to properly chill any leftovers to additionally avoid the possibility of food poisoning.
The USDA’s Meredith Caruthers says two of the four steps to keeping your Thanksgiving dinner safe for consumption both before and after the meal has to do with the cooking of it and then chilling the leftovers.
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To make sure your turkey is properly cooked, Caruthers says poke a food thermometer in three different places into the bird…
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The USDA notes that 48 million Americans a year get sick from foodborne illnesses leading to three thousand deaths annually.
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According to Triple-A, Thanksgiving travel is up 13-percent and law enforcement is concerned the increase in travel could lead to a large number of motor vehicle crashes. State Police Trooper Ross Brennan says during last year’s Thanksgiving holiday period nearly 800 people were injured and eight people killed in crashes in Louisiana…
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Last year, nearly half of the fatal crashes investigated involved impaired drivers. Brennan says Troopers have a zero-tolerance policy and those caught driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs will be arrested…
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State Police and local law enforcement will also be working to enforce the state’s seat belt laws as part of the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration’s Click It or Ticket seat belt awareness campaign…
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Christmas Tree Farmers say they’re already off to a busy start with more people decorating earlier this season. And to meet the demand Kevin Steele of Steele’s Christmas Tree Farm in Washington Parish says for the first time they opened the weekend before Thanksgiving.
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But if you’re dead set on a certain type of tree you might be out of luck. Kay Gersch of Yawn Station Christmas Tree Farm in Livingston Parish says Fraser Firs are hard to come by.
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Farmers say there are plenty of pick and cut trees from Louisiana growers even though Ida did leave her mark this summer on local growers. Gersch says some of their barns lost roofs and their trees were also impacted, a majority had to be re-supported.
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The state’s Hurricane Ida Sheltering Program is continuing to move forward with more than 13-hundred travel trailers already placed in the hardest-hit parishes for those affected by the storm.
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That’s GOHSEP acting director, Casey Tingle, who says the state purchased nearly 21-hundred of the trailers under the program announced by Governor Edwards in early October to serve as a bridge to help displaced families until FEMA’s Direct Housing mission gets up and running.
Tingle says the current pace of the trailers being newly occupied is about 40 a day.
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Tingle on how many families may get access to these trailers by next month, just over three months after Ida made landfall.
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The Hurricane Ida Sheltering Program offers temporary, non-congregate sheltering. Meaning that survivors of the storm have a living space until other temporary permanent housing options become available to them.