Vermilion Parish to receive funding for emergency operations center instead of safe room

Appropriations for a safe room to house a Vermilion Parish emergency operations center will be eliminated from the 2022 federal budget, and funds will be reappropriated for an EOC building, State Rep. Ryan Bourriaque, R-Abbeville, told the Vermilion Parish Police Jury at its meeting Wednesday.
Bourriaque was at the police jury meeting to report on the recent state legislative session and its impact on Vermilion Parish.
“There’s been a lot of discussion about the appropriation,” Bourriaque said. “As you know, the federal appropriation was for $5.25 million for a safe room. It’s been determined that really the appropriation would have been more appropriate for an emergency operation center, an EOC, which has a whole different set of guidelines, but it really is more suited to what the parish intends to construct.”
Parish administrator Keith Roy has been working with Congressman Clay Higgins’ office, Bourriaque said, to eliminate the funding and get new appropriation for an EOC building.
“Unfortunately, the EOC funding has a cap of $3 million, so your funding will go from $5.25 to $3 million,” Bourriaque said. “But it still appears that it’ll be more useful and you’ll get more out of the $3 million than you could’ve used with the $5 million, based on the safe room requirements.”
The parish sent a letter to the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness and FEMA, and GOHSEP sent a letter to the federal emergency organization as well requesting the $5 million in funds be canceled, in anticipation of the EOC funding being appropriated.
The safe room had been planned because the parish needed an area where officials could gather to monitor and plan for emergencies such as hurricanes. The parish courthouse is too crowded, and doesn’t have facilities like showers and cooking areas to be used in case of such emergencies.
“We got notification from Congressman Higgins’ office today,” Bourriaque said. “It appears that it’s going to be an appropriation for the Department of Homeland Security and the appropriation will be for next fiscal year, so the funds should be available in October.”
Fifteen hundred bills were introduced in the past legislative session, he said, and he thought local representatives did some good for the district, which he wanted to let the police jury know about. Bourriaque said he carried the fiscal year 2023 annual plan for the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority for the entire state, and he is one of three members of the CPRA board from the area. The CPRA annual plan was for $1.3 billion in coastal projects across the state.
“I was impressed to know the CPRA acknowledges this area, they acknowledge the Chenier Plain, the needs that we have,” he said.
Bourriaque highlighted some of the projects that were done the past fiscal year, including:
• $3.2 million for mill, patch, overlay and drainage on La. 697 from La. 343 to La. 167;
• $1.9 million for work on La. 35 from La. 14 to Suire’s;
• $1.8 million for patch, overlay and drainage on La. 3287;
• work on La. 13 from two miles north of La. 14 to the Acadia Parish line.
He also said work scheduled to be let this year includes downtown Abbeville streetscaping (sidewalk repair and lighting) for $480,000; phase 3 of work in Kaplan (landscape, signage and lights) for $669,000; and La. 35 from La. 82 to Suire’s, getting a thin overlay.
Bourriaque said he typically gets a lot of questions about why some roads are getting funds for improvement when other roads that are in worse shape are not getting repaired.
“When 82 from the Perry Bridge south to Palmetto was overlaid, I got quite a few calls saying, ‘Why in the hell are we re-overlaying one of the best roads in the parish when we’ve got all these other roads’ (that are in worse condition)? DOTD started a new program in the 90s, a preventative maintenance program, it’s a PMP. There’s federal money that comes in. You’re going to see those roads that were moved to the PMP, every six to seven years, if nothing else, get a thin overlay. So 35 from Suire’s south to that intersection with 82, really, all things considered it isn’t too bad, especially if you just came off of 82 from Esther back to 35.
“The preservation program is going to assist with the thin overlay on 35 so that we don’t wait 30 or 40 years for the full funding to get there, to get down to the base, do stabilization, do milling and then come back up with a two-inch overlay.”
The Perry Bridge rehabilitation project should get underway this year, he said, as part of a $9.1 million project.
In design in the highway priority program is $402,000 on La. 700 to replace the bridge over Bayou Grand Marais. La. 82 from La. 35 to La. 333, work is scheduled at $5.4 million to stabilize the base and do overlay.
Three bridge projects are in the highway priority program — the downtown Abbeville bridge ($8 million), the bypass ($8 million) and the Little Prairie Bridge. The number of antiquated bridges that have structural issues is important to discuss, he said, with the DOTD’s off-system bridge program in place to “replace or rehabilitate structurally deficient or functionally obsolete parish structures in a cost efficient manner.”
“The fact that we’re getting all of these in the highway priority program at the same time when the legislature is putting a priority on shifting one-time surplus dollars to preservation and to off-system bridges, and when you’ve got IIJA (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) money coming down, $200 million that’s going to nothing but bridges, we’ve got to get these projects designed and ready to go when that grant money hits,” Bourriaque said.
The police jury also heard from Waste Connections officials about trash pickup issues and container replacement issues that some residents reported.
Ben Rivera of the Vermilion Economic Development Alliance introduced new program administrator Victoria Sagrera Bourque to the council. A Vermilion Parish native, Bourque studied coastal restoration and worked in coastal restoration and advocacy in southeast Louisiana.
“I’m excited to apply that here, but also apply the economic development list to that, because those two tie in very nicely,” she said. “I’m very excited to be back home, working with you.”