Sandra Gonzalez WGNO News

5:51 p.m. CDT, June 11, 2011
NEW ORLEANS—

Be prepared. It's the message about hurricane season in neighborhoods across New Orleans. A summit Saturday focused on getting ready and building neighborly bonds.

The Hello Hurricane Season Summit brought neighborhood leaders together to help share information with their communities to keep everyone safe. Evacuating when necessary is of the highest priority.

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“We all are busy but make a plan, be prepared and let’s just hope that we have a safe and quiet season. Preparing in New Orleans should be as important as paying the rent,” said Robert Fogarty of Evacuteer.org.

Evacuateer.org and the ciy organized the summit, not only to pull together neighborhoods, but also to take shared ideas back to New Orleans' many communities. Leaders say New Orleans is better organized than when Gustav hit. And they want their neighbors to prepare now, just in case.

“They need to start getting ready and putting together their documents, putting all their medications in a bag and having somewhere or someone that they can connect to,” said Leonidas community leader, Tilman Hardy.

Evacuteer.org in conjunction with the city of New Orleans is looking for hundreds of volunteers, should the mayor call for an evacuation this hurricane season, there was even some training offered during this summit.

“If you’re going to move 30,000 people in 48-hours, like the city is going to try to do if we have to, all hands have to be on deck, so that’s kind of our public service,” Fogarty said.

Leaders are also trying to come up with a new concept for hurricane pickup points and displayed images at the summit to get feedback.