Vermilion Parish officials gather in preparation for hurricane season

For public officials, things can be incredibly hectic when preparing for and responding to a hurricane.
Having all of them on the same page helps increase the efficiency of both the preparation and response.
To get all public officials and entities in Vermilion Parish on the same page, Homer Stelly got them in the same room.
Stelly, who took over late last year as director of the Vermilion Parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, held a 2021 Hurricane Preparedness meeting on Wednesday.
Officials from all levels of government, representatives from Abbeville General and Acadian Ambulance, as well as first responders in the parish, attended the meeting, which took place at the LSU AgCenter building in Abbeville.
Stelly invited Vermilion Parish Police Jury President Dane Hebert to kick off the meeting.
“I thank everyone for coming,” Hebert said. “What I would like to do is call on God to carry us through the season without any hurricanes or other disasters.”
Hurricane season officially runs from June 1 through Nov. 30. Should one or more storms
impact the parish during that time, Stelly said a high level of communication among all entities in the parish will be vital. That served as a critical message during Wednesday’s meeting.
“One of the weakest aspects is communication,” Stelly said. “We don’t communicate. If something is going on in the City of Abbeville, they can let me and the OEP office know. We can pass that information on to Maurice, Kaplan, Erath, Gueydan and Delcambre.
“That can get information and knowledge going.”
Stelly stressed that “knowledge is power,” another theme of Wednesday’s meeting. Stelly invited people from various areas of expertise to speak. That list of speakers included Roger Erickson of the National Weather Service in Lake Charles, Kirk Frith of the Vermilion Parish Sheriff’s Office, Gabe Mathiew of Vermilion Parish 911, Karen Buroker with the Office of Public Health, Mark Creswell of Acadiana Ambulance, Debbie Garrot, director of the Vermilion Parish Animal Shelter, Melissa White, who spoke about point-to-point shelter, and Lee John of the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOSHEP).
“All of these guest speakers today have the knowledge,” Stelly said. “I hope we can pass that knowledge to all the leadership in this parish. Hopefully, when you leave here today, you can go back to your organization and be able to say, I know what to do before a hurricane gets here, I know what to do during a hurricane and I know what to do after a hurricane.”
Frith agreed that bringing all parties together can yield the best results. Frith also credited the police jury for continued efforts to seek funding to construct a building that would serve as a command center during a storm.
“I credit their leadership,” Frith said. “They are going for a grant to fund a building for these types of emergencies. This would create a room big enough for all the entities to come together.
“It’s a lot easier when we’re all together.”
As this is expected to be a busy hurricane season, Erickson said it is likely that leaders in Vermilion Parish will be coming together, even if it is just to monitor potential threats.
“This is not to say how many are going to come to Vermilion,” Erickson said of predictions for the season. “Hopefully, nothing comes into Vermilion. We’re just expecting it to be busy in the Gulf of Mexico. If nothing else, we will get a lot of practice when monitoring something in the Gulf.
“Hopefully, Louisiana catches a break this year, and we don’t get the activity like we did last year.”
Erickson said planning is important because you can’t will away a storm.
“Nature is nature,” Erickson said. “All you can do is track it and then respond to it.”
Stelly said communication among everyone in the parish could create a cohesive response.
“I like to see everyone in the loop,” Stelly said. “Tom is going to talk to Bill. Bill is going to talk to Mary. All of this knowledge is then going to start moving around Vermilion Parish.”