Vermilion Parish Police Jury’s new 911/OEP Center will be completed by end of the year

If you drive past the Amazon Building on North Airport Road, you’ll notice a new facility going up. Right now, the cement is poured and the steel beams are in place.
Chad Vallo, the newly elected Police Jury president, recently educated Vermilion Parish Chamber members at its annual “state of the parish” breakfast about what was being built.
Vallo explained that a new “Emergency Operations 911 Communication Center” is being built. The total square footage is 11,000 at an $8 million price tag.
The communication center is expected to be finished by the end of 2026. Federal grants will cover $6 million of the cost.
The remaining $2 million will come from the parish’s 1976 and 1978 sales tax fund and the 911 fund.
It will house the 911 Department, the Office of Emergency Preparedness, and the parish’s Fire Protection Association. The building will also include a room where meetings with parish officials, as well as with fire and police departments, could take place before and after a hurricane.
Vallo said the facility will have 36 to 42 beds for first responders and others. It is designed to withstand winds up to 160 miles per hour.
“I hope that we never have to use it,” Vallo said, “but we are building an OEP/911 safe room for hurricane preparedness. As a sheriff’s deputy for 35 years, anytime we had a storm come through, we had to make a makeshift where we were going to set up for response. It was always trouble finding where we were going to put everybody for the response we would need.”
In the past for hurricanes, emergency personnel and parish officials held meetings in the court house and slept in court rooms when needed.
Once construction is complete, everyone will be able to meet in the new building.
After 911 and OEP move out of the courthouse, those spaces may be used by the district attorney’s office, judges, or the clerk of court.