Construction is now complete on St. Martin Parish’s “safe room,” Parish President Chester Cedars says.
The safe room was constructed for officials with the parish’s emergency operations to use during a disaster, Cedars explains.
“It’s just that – a safe room that will provide secure quarters during a disaster event,” Cedars says. “We can store records, personnel can be housed their temporarily, and more importantly, it gives us a communication center, an incident command center to dispatch and monitor personnel and events as they unfold.”
The facility took about a year to build, and was paid for by FEMA disaster mitigation grants, with matching in-kind donations from the St. Martin Parish Sheriff’s Office, he said. The parish’s emergency operations director, Terry Guidry, oversaw the construction of the building, he said.
“We’re very fortunate to have someone of such capability, not only overseeing our operations, but overseeing the construction as well,” Cedars said. “It’s a very important facility. It’s state-of-the-art.”
