Vermilion Parish Law Enforcement Center will be getting protection levee to stop flooding

By the end of 2014, the Vermilion Parish Law Enforcement Center is expected to have a strange looking wall around it and it will be built not to keep the prisoners in. The main objective of the wall is to keep storm surge water out of the prison.
Thanks to FEMA, a seven-foot high dirt and cement levee will be placed around the law enforcement center.
The dirt levee will be far from the building where prisoners are held. It will extend from Allen Bares Jr. Drive to the back where the canal is. The dirt levee will be constructed along the canal and back towards Allen Bares Jr. Drive road.
In front of the law enforcement center will be a cement wall with flood gates.
The total cost of the project will be $2.1 million and it will be funded by FEMA.
The levee will go around 18 acres of land, including prisoners’ garden and sherifff’s office shooting range.
Col. Kirk Frith, who is the warden of the jail, explained why a projection levee is needed, despite the jail never flooding.
Col. Frith said when Hurricane Rita’s storm surge flooded

Vermilion Parish, the only thing around the jail that did not get flooded was the jail itself. The storm surge pushed water to Abbeville, filling up the fields around the jail with water.
‘The jail had no water, but the only visible part above water was the ground the jail sits on,” said Col. Frith. “It brought to mind that the jail needed a projection levee,”
Col. Frith met with engineer Gene Sellers Sr. in trying to come up with a design for the levee. At first, the levee was going to run close to the building as possible, creating a problem.
When the prisoners mow the field, or work in the garden, they would have to cross the seven-foot high dirt levee, making it impossible to have security cameras watching them because of the levee.
Col. Frith came up with a simple solution for the prisoners’ problem.
The levee will be built on the edge of the property line. On top the levees a hurricane fence will be constructed. On top of the fence will be a barb wire.
“My big concern was work trustees working in the yard,” Frith said. “They do everything from grass cutting to yard maintenance. My concern would be if they would run over the levee and we would lose vision of them.”
Because of his concern about the levee, FEMA agreed to pay to put a fence on top of the levee.
“The fence will put me at rest and ease,” he added.