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When a hurricane barrels toward Terrebonne Parish, residents face a tough choice.
They must choose between riding out the storm to watch over property and loved ones, with the best-case scenario for many meaning days without electricity and the worst including rising waters and worse, or evacuating and leaving behind those people and things they love, inviting a feeling of helpless uncertainty.
For those at the Terrebonne Parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, the choice beforehand is simple: they stay. It is all the choices once the storm hits that prove more challenging.
TOHSEP acts as the hub of decision-making during nature events, with TOHSEP Director Earl Eues working closely with staff, Terrebonne Parish President Gordon Dove and local first responders to address crises and save lives as needed. The key to a successful storm effort is clear and effective communication among the different parties and a cohesive plan, as well as a bit of fortune from the gods of weather.
To help those critical junctures, the parish built a new Emergency Operations Center to house TOHSEP year-round and parish leaders during storms. The $7.4 million project was completed in June of this year and is a large improvement in size, capacity and wind resistance to TOHSEP’s previous digs. The 11,000 sq. ft. facility is built to withstand a Category 5 hurricane, while TOHSEP’s previous office in a converted warehouse on Capitol Blvd. in Houma could only handle a Category 1 or 2 storm. The new center also has impact-resistent glass, a 64-seat incident command center and a 100 ft. radio tower built to withstand 225 mph gusts. Eues said in the old building, sleeping quarters were improvised each night during a storm. That is not an issue in the new EOC, which has two 12-bed dormitory style rooms.
“There’s two things I really wanted to accomplish. One was the incident command room was large enough to house the number of people we needed,” Eues said. “The second thing was we definitely needed sleeping quarters. We didn’t have anywhere for people to sleep when we operated for 24 hours. So, having the sleeping quarters, we had to have that.”
One of those familiar with the past sleeping arrangements, Terrebonne Sheriff Jerry Larpenter, was calling dibs on a bed during the EOC’s ribbon cutting ceremony. While he advised Terrebonne residents to evacuate whenever a storm is nearing, he said the new center would assist them in getting residents home to rebuild as soon as possible.
“Sooner or later, we’re going to get it. We’re going to get the big one. So, we’re going to be as best-prepared as we can be,” Larpenter said.
Terrebonne Parish President Gordon Dove helped secure $4.3 million of state capital outlay money for the project when he was a state representative. He said the parish’s first line of defense against storms is the Morganza-to-the-Gulf levee protection system, but the EOC acts as Terrebonne’s central nervous system during hurricanes.
“This is our lifeblood in an emergency, and we’re progressing forward,” Dove said.
Terrebonne Parish officials celebrate the ribbon cutting of the new Emergency Operations Center.
