A prelude to this year’s hurricane season was held at the Westgate High School auditorium Thursday evening as CERT provided a free event to educate local residents about hurricane preparedness.

The event included speakers from the National Weather Service as well as Prescott Marshall with the Iberia Parish Homeland Security to give the auditorium full of interested residents information regarding this year’s upcoming season.

Marshall gave information regarding Iberia PINS, which is the parish’s official emergency alert and notification system that is used to send alerts to the public during emergencies. The service is free and allows residents to sign up online to receive customized alerts via text message, e-mail and voice message.

The messages include information about severe weather, safety, health, utility, disruptions and more that could be especially useful during the hurricane season.

Members of the National Weather Service gave preliminary information about how this year’s hurricane season is shaping up for the year, including 2023 becoming an El Nino year which will likely make the water in the Pacific warmer than usual.