[StBernard] MINUTES OF OPERATIONS BRIEFING - June 22

[Westley Annis]

Editor's note: Craig has sent me the minutes for a few previous meetings but
because of computer errors I never got around to posting them.  If any one
still wants them, I can pull them out and send them through.

MINUTES OF OPERATIONS BRIEFING
Thursday, June 22, 2006, 8:00 a.m.

Dave Peralta, Chief Administrative Officer

Present:  22

Emergency Operations: Larry Ingargiola. 
1. We would like to let our residents know that our parish is under a ban
for Fireworks for July 4th, 2006.             
  
Community Development:  Mike Hunnicutt. Not present.              

Public Works and Water and Sewer:  Chris Merkl. 
Curry Reports: 
1. Demolish and debris pick-up is still in the process.
2. Commercial debris pick-up is slow due to the owners slowly coming in to
sign the right of entry forms. 
3. Gidget asked about how /who can our residents call about getting dead
trees removed from their home. Curry replied for the residents to contact
Public Works.

Recovery:  David Dysart.  
1. The Base Camp is up and operational.
2. Judy Hoffmeister and Joey DiFatta were able to reserve 5 freezer units
from Red Cross.                                                
Public Assistance: 
Residential:  Craig Taffaro. 
1. All hope the pilot program will hit its stride after July 4, for those
residents still in need of a trailer.  We still don’t have any clarification
on how Fema will address the gap between the numbers of trailers for our
residents.  

Business:  Charles Ponstein. 
1. Main’s Supermarket will open next Wednesday.
2. We even tried to get local supermarkets to come in with temporary
trailers but they still don’t have enough employees to even run their stores
to pre-Katrina hours. 

Private Non-Profit: Judy Hoffmeister Not present.

Volunteers:  Gidget McDougall
1. We have an update on how many people are coming into our business trailer
to use our fax and phones.  We have counted over 400 people. 
2. We also found out that Curves will be coming back to the Chalmette area. 
3.  We will be updating our attorney list on the web site.
4. We also will be getting a committee together for the one year anniversary
of Hurricane Katrina.

Agriculture/Wildlife and Fisheries:  Ricky Melerine. Not present.
Lake Borgne Basin Levee District:  Bob Turner.
1. Hurricane levees are back up to pre-Katrina standards. The Violet locks
are fully up to operations. They will also be doing a final inspection.
Bayou Bienvenue: still working that structure but that is New Orleans and
they will take care of that.  
2. The interior levee system has been built up to 10 feet and some cases are
up 2 ½ to 3 feet higher pre Katrina. Expect a 4,000 foot stretch area that
is still not up in Verret.
3. We had some rain yesterday and we had some street flooding in some areas.
We are still experiencing problems with that marsh grass debris in the
canals. The pump station number seven in Meraux still experiencing trash
rate failure again there yesterday. We had a crew down there this morning
working on that to get it back online.  I don’t see any reduction in the
amount of material that is coming into the stations every time that we pump.
We are trying again to work with Fema on that issue plus we need to speak to
them regarding a project that they allowed the Corps to do the choke points
in most of the areas.  They did a good job however in some spots the
contractor didn’t have the equipment so they just left.  The area in Verret
on Highway LA-46 has not yet been addressed and they still have a island
with trees growing on it. We have put in a request for this back on
September 27, 2005. 
4. Our pump stations # 1, 6, 7, 4 and 8 are 100% up and running. Pump
station # 5 still has only 4 of the 6 engines running there. Stations 2 and
3 were the ones that were totally destroyed during Katrina that will be
rebuilt by the Corps.  
Medical:  Dr. Bryan Bertucci 
1. The Clinic treated 106 -108 patients Monday and Tuesday. 
2. We are doing X-Rays and we have labs that are being picked up and brought
to Baton Rouge with one day turn around. 
3. The Public Health Group that we are working with told us that we are not
getting on the LRA’S agenda for July 7, 2006 and we only met with them once.
We are trying to get a person from the parish to be on the board or voice
our case for our parish.  We need this being we don’t have a hospital here
in the parish we need to express our situation down here without having a
hospital.  

EMS:  Janie Fuller.  Not present.

Public Safety:  Sheriff=s Office. Pete Tufaro 
1.  Our Swat team assisted Jefferson Parish Friday afternoon in a standoff.
We used our swat truck and it worked out well.                         
2. We had a few arrests over the weekend. 
 

Fire Department: A.J. Seruntine.
1. We have to report:  3 structures and 15 misc. trash fires, etc, 18
medical calls and 6 hazard conditions fuel leaks and a 1 alarm fire.


Environmental Issues:  
CDC and DEQ:  Wayne Desselle. 
1. Don’t have a status on Aycock Street because otherwise I have been
occupied with CCA group. 
2. We have a meeting with CCA contractors, Mr. Bradshaw plus others will be
meeting with council today for the 10:00 a.m. meeting.  We still don’t have
a signed plan from CCA nor a demolition list. 
                             
EPA:  No Report              
Murphy Oil:  Jim Wallwork
1. Still cleaning houses and to date we have picked up 330,000 cubic yards
of debris.  

Parish Government:  
Council:  Lynn Dean. Not present.
Parks and Recreation:  John Metzler, Jr.  
1. We had our first rain out games last night. We do have lights to start
our night games.                
External Affairs:  No report.
Finance:  Geremie Loupe.  Not present.
Personnel:  Kevin Clark. Not present.
Insurance:  Mike Wiltz.  Not present.
Long Term Recovery:  Marvin LeBlanc. Not present.

General Information:
Next meeting scheduled for Monday, June 26, 2006 at 8 a.m.