Kandee Denise Coates
February 16, 2007Ruthie Mae “Betty” Smith
February 22, 2007
The Terrebonne Parish Communications District (Terrebonne 911) opened its new facility on Capital Boulevard two weeks ago, and last week dedicated it to the late Debra “Debbie” Maronge
Maronge, who died of cancer on June 2, 2001, was a 911-dispatcher and call taker. At the dedication, Mark Boudreaux, executive director or Terrebonne 911, said that Maronge lived for her job. “Ms. Debbie Maronge was a person who devoted her life to the public,” he said. “(She) devoted her life to taking care of other people. When she passed away, she worked all the way up until two weeks prior to her passing. She would love this building.”
Prior to working for Terrebonne 911, Maronge was a dispatcher for 15 years with the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s office, according to Boudreaux.
The new facility, a 4,000-square-foot brick building, is located just behind the old facility, and offers a myriad of upgrades that were not available in the older facility. Every room is completely secured, and a card is needed to get inside of them.
Chairman Chief Ken Pitre said the most important asset offered by the new facility is redundancy. “The only way we can operate,” he said, “is by having a redundant system.”
Pitre said redundancy holds such importance because if any piece of technology were to fail, all of it is backed up. “The big improvement—organization,” he stressed.
According to the chief, the $650,000 building was built to withstand Category 5 hurricanes. He said in the case of a Category 5 storm, the entire parish would be evacuated—even Terrebonne 911.
“So what’ll happen, is … when we come back, we crank up the generator and we have a place of operation for the parish,” explained Pitre. “Everything in the parish actually would have a base of operation.”
The “base of operation” feature is possible because of a conference room that was included in the building.
“If something would happen,” added Pitre, “and the parish president comes back, and they can’t use the government building and this building is OK, he’s got a place of operations.
“The goal of the (Terrebonne Parish Communications District) was to have a facility that if we got hit, it would be here when we got back and we’d have a starting point to begin with,” the chief noted.
Other key features include being 10 feet above sea level and over two miles from the intracoastal canal, he said.
The main dispatching room currently has four consoles for dispatchers, but can expand to fit eight dispatchers. The dispatchers can also access all needed features from their consoles.
“This facility has the capability of dispatching all agencies in Terrebonne Parish,” said Pitre. “If anything happens with their actual dispatching office, It was designed to be a total operations center.”
During the ceremony, Pitre said years ago, it was requested that if a new building were ever built, it would be dedicated to Maronge. “It passed with no descending votes,” he said. “Today we have an opportunity to grant that wish.”
Boudreaux added, “Debbie’s in here with us.”
