St. John the Baptist Parish authorities sent out a message Monday evening asking residents to disregard any siren that was set off in the parish that night.

Authorities said emergency sirens were set off in a neighboring parish, which caused a technical difficulty with St. John Parish sirens.

All St. John sirens were cleared.

“As previously notified, St. John the Baptist Parish is currently under a Severe Thunderstorm Warning until 6 p.m. (Monday) and a Tornado Watch until 10 p.m. (Monday),” the release stated.

The notification represented a cautious but appropriate approach to severe weather potential, something our region knows all too much about.

It doesn’t take a hurricane either, as many in the River Parishes found out in May, when a heavy rainstorm flooded homes in St. John and surrounding parishes.

In our own building, word of Monday’s hard rain possibility set in motion a sense of awareness and doubling down of communication methods as each employee was notified of the potential threat and what to do if the worst of the weather impacted our homes and families.

As of Tuesday morning, authorities did not report any damage from Monday’s storms, but that lack of negative impact shouldn’t prevent us from approaching the next storm threat with equal care.

Being overprepared and underwhelmed is the perfect way to come out of each passing thunderstorm.

Our thanks goes to all those who spread the word of this week’s severe storm watches and tornado warnings. Should we keep that attention to caution in place with future episodes, it will surely save lives as the inevitable bad storm strikes again at our doorsteps.