As I am writing this on Tuesday, Hurricane Isaac was close to making landfall in Louisiana. Barring something unforeseen, it appears like Alabama won’t bear the brunt of the storm.

That’s a good thing. Alabama has had its share of catastrophic weather systems in the past couple of years. If you factor in the April 27, 2011, tornado outbreak, then we’ve probably seen enough for an entire lifetime.

However, there is no way to guarantee that something like that outbreak or a hurricane like Katrina and Ivan won’t happen again. So we always have to take each threat seriously.

That’s something I believe Alabama governors have done an outstanding job doing over the last decade or so. Both former Gov. Bob Riley and current Gov. Robert Bentley declared mandatory evacuations well in advance of the storm. While they can be inconvenient, it’s still something that you should always err on the side of caution.

Even though we won’t see the main part of the storm, it’s very possible that we’ll see storms from the outer feeder bands. Some could contain some severe weather, but mostly we’ll see some good rain.

But that rain is something we need. So we could get some beneficial rain, but thankfully the high winds and torrential rains won’t be coming our way.

Brent Maze is the managing editor of the Hartselle Enquirer.