St. Mary Parish dodges Rita’s wrath, but takes lessons learned afterward to heart

Thibodaux Regional Medical Center’s North Hospital project complete
October 20, 2006
Thibodaux Regional Medical Center’s North Hospital project complete
October 20, 2006

With the one-year mark of Hurricane Rita’s Louisiana landfall approaching, St. Mary Parish officials say past events have prepared them for future storms.

Although St. Mary Parish did not take on the type of damage surrounding parishes sustained, officials say the events offered an opportunity to learn from others without taking on extensive damages.


“I feel like we’re in good shape,” said Director of Homeland Security/OEP Duval Arthur.


Assessing the Damages

According to Parish President Paul Naquin, damages from Hurricane Rita occurred near Amelia, Cypremort Point and Franklin. “We had a few areas in the eastern part of the parish in the Amelia area with a little wind damage,” said Paul Naquin. “It (also) brought us a lot of water, and a little wind, into the western end of the parish. We had about 70 structures in our low-lying area in the Cypremort Point area that had substantial damages.”


Of those 70 structures, most of which were camps, 58 were completely demolished, according to the parish president. “We had maybe 10 homeowners that had some water damage,” he said.


Water made up most of the damages in Franklin. “In one area we had about 100 homes that had flood damage,” Naquin said. “None of them substantial, but they did have water damage. Some of them had up to three feet of water in their homes.”

Naquin said the water damage at Cypremort Point was the result of a 13- to 14-foot storm surge.


Arthur added that the parish lost radio access through its communications tower.


“We did not lose the tower itself, but our radios and what have you,” he said. “We have since moved them up further. They were up about 6-feet off the ground, and now they’re up about 8-feet. So we feel like we’ve gotten them up high enough right now to avoid the water.”

Evacuation proves a success


Evacuations were one of the best-handled aspects, according to Arthur. “I think we handled the cars that were evacuating … very well,” he said. “That was something that worked good, because we had Katrina going through to the east, and we had Rita coming through to the west, so that’s the way our evacuations went.”


Sheriff David Naquin agrees. “I’m not one of those guys who really believes that we should … make people evacuate,” said the sheriff. “But I do believe we should keep them informed, and if they choose to stay on their own, then they can choose to stay, as long as they understand we may not be able to come out and get to them in the middle of the storm.

“For the most part, we’ve been pretty successful with that,” he added.


Arthur said the success with the evacuation aspect of storm preparation comes with an increased ability to put out information. “The one common question I still get is … if I leave, if I evacuate, are you going to let me back in.”


Naquin said his stance remains the same.

“Again, I’m one of those guys that believes in letting people back in as soon as possible,” he said. “And what we did in a couple of areas based on last year, we found pretty successful.”

The system the sheriff refers to deals with areas similar to Cypremort Point, where there is one road in and one road out. “Basically, I run the tax rolls, and I wouldn’t let people go down there unless they owned property,” Naquin. “That went over pretty well with the residents.

“We turned a lot of people around that just wanted to go in sight seeing, and cut down on the scavenging and vandalisms and stealing that might have occurred,” he said.

Naquin added that implementing elements such as that can make residents more comfortable with evacuating.

Lesson’s learned

While last year’s storms provided opportunity for St. Mary Parish officials to learn lessons from surrounding areas, just as with any community on the Gulf Coast, the education of hurricane safety dates back to nearly every hurricane to have ever threatened.

Along with the raising of the communications’ tower, officials say certain issues concerning levees, shelters and fuel have been, or are being addressed.

Naquin said prior to the storm, the Corps of Engineers raised about half the levees in the Bayou Sale area. The other half will be bid out in either October or early 2007. “That should help us somewhat with protection from the high waters,” he said.

Arthur said at one point, St. Mary Parish sheltered 6,000 evacuees. “Our shelters were to the breaking point,” he said. “It took the effort of a lot of people to feed them all and find a place for them to live.”

Arthur added that one revision to the shelters would be supplying MRE’s to evacuees. “We could give them those without having to cook until we get our kitchen set up,” he said. “We stayed busy with the evacuation efforts, and taking care of our evacuees. It was a struggle to prepare food for everybody.”

When the communication tower was lost, Arthur said radios from a mobile command post were put in a tower, and were used until the water receded.

“We had a fuel problem that came up for our generator (at the courthouse),” he added. “Now we have a secondary tank, just in case.”

As with anything else, lessons are learned from previous experiences. And according to Naquin, the biggest lesson is to be able to take care of your own.

“I learned a lesson from (Hurricane) Andrew, I guess, and things really haven’t changed over the years,” he said. “Since Andrew, it’s a fact that you can’t wait on FEMA, you can’t wait on government, you can’t wait on somebody to come take care of you. You’ve got to go take care of yourself first, and I guess that’s the one thing that probably hadn’t changed over the years. They do come eventually, but it’s very slow in coming, so you’ve got to be proactive.

“You’ve got to go out and you’ve got to be very aggressive, so that’s the big thing we’ve learned over the years,” he said.

Matt LeBlanc can be reached at (985) 876-3008 or matt@tri-parishtimes.com.