[StBernard] Hurricane Preparedness Drill is in effect for St. Bernard Parish Oil Spill Operations

[Westley Annis]

Hurricane preparedness drill is in effect for St. Bernard Parish oil spill
operations

St. Bernard Parish President Craig P. Taffaro, Jr., joined by Councilman at
Large Wayne Landry, held a press conference this evening at the Command
Center at the Breton Sound Marina to address current oil spill operations
and the current tropical weather outlook. Due to the current weather
situation, actions are being taken by Unified Command to exercise a
hurricane drill and put into action procedures to relocate oil spill
resources to predetermined locations in Chalmette, specifically the Port and
other designated areas of safe harbor. 

"We are already prepared and in motion to begin a staging operation away
from Hopedale as part of a strategic placement of assets," Taffaro said.
"The approaching storm has given us reason to attempt and complete a drill
for our hurricane preparedness plan. We have, as of today, enacted our
hurricane preparedness drill. We have not evacuated the base. We do not
intend to stand the operation down on any permanent basis. Based on the
trajectory of the storm, we expect to be back into full operations on
Monday." 

St. Bernard Parish has decided to begin recovering already deployed hard oil
containment boom from parish waters, so as to not have this resource
displaced or damaged from storm activity. This is due to a large amount of
boom displacement and boom damage experienced during Tropical Storm Alex. 

"The Unified Command at the Branch in Hopedale has implemented a program to
remove as much of the 50 miles of boom as possible, and we began that today,
to remove that boom from the water and stage it in a safe and secure
location and redeploy it as soon as the threat passes," President Taffaro
said. "In addition, we will move all of our skimming assets into safe
harbor. We have already started to move some of the quarters barges and
housing facilities on the water to safe harbor as well."

A situation arose at St. Bernard Parish oil spill operations today regarding
where to relocate assets due to weather conditions. This situation was
addressed as part of the press conference this evening. 

"There is a plan that was suggested by the Coast Guard and BP to stage
assets at a centralized staging area that was identified to be in Gonzales,
LA," President Taffaro said.  "The municipalities, which include St.
Bernard, met throughout the course of the day with the Area Command and
discussed this with the Unified Command to identify an alternate plan and to
make certain adjustments so those resources would be safe and secure and
staged at higher ground so that any storm related activity would not do
damage to those resources. There was some communication that caused some
confusion. Some orders were given. As they were attempting to implement, we
had an opportunity to rectify and have those orders reconsidered and sort of
close the loop, making sure the assets were staged in the Chalmette area by
the St. Bernard Branch."

President Taffaro thanked BP and Coast Guard for their efforts in
maintaining an open dialogue for coordination in this matter. "Our Branch
continues to promote a one-team, one fight mission," Taffaro said. "We will
continue to operate in that vein hopefully throughout the course of this
event." 

"We want to make sure that we have the assets that are available to us and
maintain that throughout the event," Councilmen Landry stated, "Even under
an emergency storm condition, we need to maintain control of our assets." 

It is the intention of President Taffaro and all other affected coastal
parishes to maintain control of all oil response resources. These parishes
continue to address the balance between protecting assets and preparing for
storm activity. 

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