[StBernard] Island looks at sister-city partnership

[Westley Annis]

Island looks at sister-city partnership
BY TIM DONNELLY, The Island Packet
Published Sunday, December 18, 2005
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The Town of Hilton Head Island is looking at setting up a partnership with a
New Orleans suburb to make sure that if a big hurricane hits -- either here
or in the Gulf -- both towns have extra emergency workers at their call.

The town and Chalmette, La., which still is digging out from Hurricane
Katrina's wreckage, could join to become "sister cities" to make each
other's emergency personnel available for use in case of a disaster.

The town has searched for months to identify a municipality where
out-of-area emergency workers could be ready to assist with recovery efforts
here after a storm. The idea is that any storm that devastated Hilton Head
also would knock out nearby communities, thereby straining resources across
the region.

Talks are in the very early stages, but Hilton Head Fire Division Chief Tom
Fieldstead said he's fairly 

confident the towns will be able to work out a partnership.

Contact with Chalmette first came through town emergency workers who
traveled to the region to help with the Katrina recovery efforts, Fieldstead
said.

The towns have nearly the same population, and both have a large amount of
elderly residents, according to census data, he said. But officials still
need to work together to see if the organizational and personnel structures
are compatible.

If the partnership begins to take shape, it won't be until sometime after
next hurricane season that the towns are ready to send personnel anywhere,
Fieldstead said. Hurricane Katrina destroyed or flooded most homes and
businesses in Chalmette, and the area still is working to recover.

"It's going to take a while for them to get to that level," Fieldstead said.
"But it's going to take us a while to get to where we're ready to move full
force on that front."

The partnership also would provide invaluable disaster-recovery experience
for both town's emergency workers, Beaufort County Emergency Management
director William Winn said. By responding to a hurricane in Chalmette,
Hilton Head emergency workers will be able to better grasp what a storm can
do and the difficulties of putting a community back together.

"You're able to go see, look and witness," Winn said. "You'll have a better
understanding and be able to bring ideas home with you. That's as good as
gold."

Winn said he hopes the partnership won't just be limited to emergency
workers. He said he'd like to see residents included, especially so they can
visit the disaster site.

In Chalmette, part of Louisiana's St. Bernard Parish, whose Web site is
still a hodgepodge of links for disaster-recovery information and lists of
missing residents, news of a possible partnership is more than welcome,
parish Councilman Mark Madary said.

"Beautiful," said Madary when asked about the sister city plan last week.

Madary, whose district includes Chalmette, said one of the main lessons of
Hurricane Katrina has been that local officials can't rely on the federal
government to handle all the recovery.

"Unfortunately the federal government is probably the slowest moving thing
I've ever seen in my life," he said. "(Help from other towns) is becoming
more and more of a help for us."