Fire departments have plans in place if storm hits

With June here and the peek hurricane months of August and September on our doorsteps, local fire departments are bracing for what the season could bring if a storm approaches the area.

“Preparation is key,” said Charles Long, chief of the Bayou Cane Fire Preservation District. “If you’re prepared and have a good plan, you’re not going to have as hard a time getting back on your feet after a storm passes … If you’re not prepared, you’re going to have a hard time.”

Long’s station is one of many that have made equipment improvements that will be ready for the 2010 season.

“We’re updating anything that needs to be updated and making sure everything is in working order,” Long said. “We’ve got hurricane shutters on our stations now that we didn’t have last year, and we’ve updated our wind-rated doors, too.”

When a storm approaches, one of the issues the departments face is who evacuates and who stays.

Each individual department has their own policy, which usually depends on the severity of the storm coming this way.

“Planning for personnel is always a very important aspect of the plan,” Long said. “How many people do you want on duty? It depends on the size of the storm, but like a tropical storm or a Category 1, I’d just run regular shifts, Category 2, I’d want two shifts of the three on duty at landfall … Anything at around a 3, I’d begin asking people to volunteer to at least have one duty shift. Anything at 4 or above, we begin a complete evacuation further inland.”

Another issue the departments face in the time leading up to a storm is where to house their equipment.

Houma Fire Chief Todd Dufrene said his office has an agreement with Nicholls State University that in the case of a hurricane, they will take their equipment to the university’s higher grounds to be housed and protected.

Dufrene said that deal was signed in the 2009 hurricane season.

“Before we stayed in a little Baptist Church in Baton Rouge that had a Recreation Center, and I just found that it was too far away,” Dufrene said.

Other departments have similar plans in place to move their resources to higher ground if needed.

“We can move our equipment to Hammond to the big Ferrara factory,” Long said. “They are setting up a big organization there for food, fuel and they can work on the trucks if someone breaks.”

When a storm nears, fire departments urge the best way for people to make their jobs easy is to cooperate with the evacuation guidelines that are laid out by the parishes.

Because when the rain and wind come, they are not available to help those who stayed that are in need.

“When there is a voluntary evacuation, we’ll ride up and down the bayous with our air horns to inform everyone and the same with a mandatory evacuation,” said Jeremy Harris, a Lieutenant with the Grand Caillou Fire Department. “But when the water comes up, we don’t leave the station. Once the storm makes landfall, we don’t move until the Parish President gives an all-clear … If the storm makes landfall and someone calls 911 saying their house is on fire, there’s pretty much nothing we can do, so evacuation is key.”

Harris said a department’s worst nightmare would be to relive what happened in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.

“It makes us feel better, because we know there are less people potentially in danger that we’re going to have to go get them in their houses after the storm is over,” he said. “What no one wants is to have to go in there like after Katrina and have to go and spray paint doors and count how many dead bodies are in houses. That’s our worst fear.”

Dufrene agreed, but said the area will be ready should the summer bring us any unwanted tropical activity.

“We’re just in stand-by in a wait-and-see mode,” Dufrene said. “We’ll be ready if something comes our way.”