Vermilion Parish Police Jury has plans to create safe room

During Hurricanes Rita and Ike, the Vermilion Parish Courthouse became the central location for officials responding to the storms.
The facility is not ideal for such a situation, according to Vermilion Parish Police Juror Mark Poche.
“We are not set up in the courthouse to have all the pre-meetings for a hurricane coming on shore,” Poche said. “We have a 20-by-20 room that we put everyone in and put the National Weather Service on speaker phone. We have emergency response people and leaders from all over the parish.
“The overflow goes into the hall and you can’t hear.”
Poche attended the Abbeville City Council meeting Tuesday evening to present a solution to this problem. The police jury is planning the construction of a safe room facility, one that will withstand up to 160-mile-per-hour winds.
“This is real preliminary,” Poche told the council.
Poche explained that there are grants through the Governor’s Office of Homeland of Security and Emergency Preparedness and the federal government.
“Those grants will allow us to build a building that’s good for up to 160-mile-an-hour winds,” Poche said. “What we are going to do is incorporate this safe room with our OEP, our (Vermilion Parish) 911, and rural fire protection.”
Bringing in fire protection, Poche said, allows the police jury to tap into the 1976 sales tax that covers fire protection to help cover some of the percentage of the cost that the grants will not fund.
The jury is ready to apply for the grants. What it needs from the city is land to put the facility. Poche made the request Tuesday night for an acre and a half at the Chris Crusta Memorial Airport. Poche proposed a swap, with the jury receiving the land and the city obtaining full ownership of the building across from Magdalen Square that currently houses the Abbeville Cultural Center museum. The city currently leases the building from the police jury.
The council voted 5-0 to move forward with negotiations.
“Let’s get the ball rolling,” Councilman Francis Touchet Jr. said.
As for the location, Poche said the airport is a strategic one.
“Of the things we learned after Rita,” Poche said, “one of the number one things was getting helicopters in and out of there.”
Mayor Mark Piazza agreed.
“This is really an ideal place to have this safe room,” Piazza said. “You have the National Guard Armory right there and airport right there. It’s high ground, next to a four-lane highway that is easy in and easy out.”
Poche said that aspect cannot be overlooked.
“You don’t have trees down in that area,” Poche said. “After a storm, one of the things you have is infrastructure problems. Over there, you don’t have trees that can fall and block the roads.”
If and when the police jury is successful in acquiring the grants to construct the safe room, it will not be the only one of its kind planned in the parish. Abbeville General has plans to build a safe room on its premises.
“This will not affect the hospital’s project,” Police Jury President Ronald Darby said. “We met with the hospital.”
Abbeville General’s safe room will not fully meet the police jury’s needs, Poche said.
“The hospital is a safe room for their psych ward,” Poche said. “It will be a place to safely ride out a storm. They will not have any communication in it. We are going to move OEP and 911 out of the courthouse.”
Moving those two entities out of the courthouse will also be a plus. The move will free up 1,700-square feet of space in the courthouse.
“This is going to help the demand from the judges and attorneys who need more room,” Poche said.
Vermilion 911 will be on one side of the planned facility, with OEP being on the other. The middle will be a room for officials to meet in preparation for a storm, as well as a place to safely operate during the storm.
“The emphasis is going to be on a huge room for everyone to meet for these hurricanes,” Poche said. “When the National Weather Service is talking to us, everyone will be able to get in the room and listen. Everyone will be able to hear at the same time.”
The size of the facility is yet to be determined. Poche referenced Iberia Parish having a 10,000-squar-foot facility, but said he is not certain Vermilion will need one that size.
“We don’t want to cut ourselves short,” Poche said. “We want to make sure we are building something that prepares us for growth.”
In any event, Poche said if the plan moves forward, it will be good for the parish.
“This is something that I have fought for,” Poche said. “After Rita in 2005, it was tough trying to operate out of the courthouse, doing what we needed to do, with all the government people coming in and out. You only need it when you have a bad storm, but when you have that bad storm, and you are one of the ones who chooses to stay, and I always have, it’s nice to be able to tell your family you have a safe place.
“If we build it, I think it is going to be a good thing for the emergency response people of this parish.”