Council addresses fire violations

The Lafourche Parish Council addressed the state Fire Marshal’s recent requests at its meeting last Tuesday.

Three weeks ago, a state Fire Marshal found multiple violations in the Mathews Government Complex, most notably, no alarm system, a bad sprinkler system and exposed electrical wiring.

During the Engineers’ Reports section of the meeting, Richard Weimer, the man commissioned to design the remodeling of the Matthews Government Complex, shined some light on what he plans to do to remedy the Fire Marshal’s requests for the building.

“The Fire Marshal insisted that someone walk this building every hour to determine if there’s any unsafe conditions and see about getting those conditions rectified,” said Weimer. “So that is going on every day that the building is occupied, and it will continue to go at least as long as there’s no fire alarm system and maybe even beyond that some, until the electrical cords are corrected.”

Weimer told the council he will present plans to the state Fire Marshal regarding a newly-designed fire alarm system. That meeting occurred March 10.

In the meantime, Lafourche Parish President Charlotte Randolph said the building will implement the fire alarm system from the parish’s old home, the Barrios Building.

Weimer said the sprinkler system is now operational; it just needs to be connected to the fire alarm system when it arrives.

“In case there’s water flow somewhere, the fire alarm system will initiate the sound of horns,” said Weimer. “So that system needs some minor modifications, and the plans are in the works to get that done.”

But Weimer thinks the building’s biggest uphill battle may be the exposed electrical cords.

“One of the biggest challenges remaining is how to correct the electrical cords that are on the floor in many locations,” said Weimer. The Fire Marshal noted that he’s working up the estimation in deciding how that’s going to be done, so that issue will be addressed as well.”

Also, the government building is currently under Mercantile Occupancy status, which is a rather low status.

Weimer said the Fire Marshall ordered the building to achieve Business Status and Assembly Status in order to safely house important documents and hold more than 50 people respectively.

Weimer told the council he would address this issue with the state Fire Marshall March 10 as well.

Randolph said these fire safely revisions will be implemented into phase one of the building’s remodeling.

She added that the changes will not delay most of the renovations, but minor changes to the plan may be needed so the parish can remain within the budget.

“We think that we may have to remove some of the plumbing we had planned on doing earlier,” said Randolph. “We’re going to go forth with the public restrooms in the front, but probably not do any more work in the back. That’ll save us some money, but that shouldn’t affect at all what we’re planning to do with the council area.”