Whenever I’m taking an interstate trip, I check the Web for closures and major traffic work along the interstate. Researching a recent trip to Louisiana, I came across an article from Red Dirt Report stating the I-10 bridge in Lake Charles is hazardous.

            This writer stated that the bridge is “very dangerous and should be closed.” The bridge’s underside was rusting away and could collapse at any moment, he stated. His advice? Take the 210-loop around the bridge and live to see another day.

            It’s hard for me to disregard a posting like that, even if I think it’s bogus. And as I approached the Lake Charles city limits, I debated which route to take. In the end, I took the 210 loop, but I felt like a wimp when I did it.

            My neighbor’s a bona-fide bridge expert, and I talked to him when I returned. He’s paid to inspect bridges, and he said the language used in these reports is technical and often misleading.

            The way comments are worded depend on the person writing the report. In his years of inspecting bridges, he’s only found two to be structurally unsound.

            I mentally slapped my forehead. I’m the person who checks on Snopes.com whenever I see some outlandish story on the Internet. From my days in the newsroom, I know to always double check the sources.

             But I still allowed that one report to sway my opinion, and it’s not the first time that’s happened. There’s one incident in my past that still causes me to cringe. When I was in high school, the local radio station reported there was going to be a trucker’s strike.

            The newscaster warned there’d be a shortage of everything – food, water and even toilet paper.

            For some reason, that last item in his report got to me. I begged my parents to make sure we stocked up on everything, especially toilet paper.

            There was no trucker’s strike, but for Christmas that year, my dad gave me a four-roll pack of toilet paper.

            Back in the 1970s, on the back of a Barbra Streisand album was a warning that we only had 10 years left. After that, we’d be shivering in the dark, our planet a used-up shell, thanks to mankind’s greed.

            My father and I had many arguments about that situation. He believed her warning was a made-up scheme by the oil companies and I believed we should heed Bab’s warning.

            Forty years later, we still have oil and Babs is still churning out albums.

            Today, National Public Radio reported on the Zika virus. This virus has been around since 1947, and a scientist on the show said it was very unlikely it would ever cause damage here in America. But the NPR folks are reporting on the virus as if the seven plagues of the pharaoh are loose in the land.

            And that’s not the only trouble we’re facing. The Democrats/Republicans are going to lead us into Armageddon, if any of them can even find their way to Washington D.C. The heavy snowfall in the north means global warming is real and the return of water to Texas means the drought is over but the mosquitoes will be back and that means West Nile Virus.

          But we can take some comfort. The bridge in Lake Charles hasn’t collapsed yet, there’s plenty of “Off” on the store shelves, and I don’t plan on going to Africa so I don’t think I’ll be exposed to the Zika virus.

           The only thing I’m worried about is catching a case of “Chicken Little” and falling for every panic story that comes along.

            But just to be on the safe side, I think I’ll stock up on toilet paper.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.