As the 2022 Hurricane Season begins, I think most Iberia Parish residents join me in feeling that we were very fortunate in 2020 and 2021 as we watched Hurricanes Laura, Delta and Ida devastate most of the other coastal parishes in Louisiana.

With this and the National Weather Service forecast for an above-normal hurricane season in mind, I’d like to update you on what your Parish Government is doing to prepare for future hurricanes and touch on what you, your families and your businesses should be doing to prepare.

We followed our Iberia Parish Emergency Operations Plan for all of these storms and it served us well. We worked smoothly with all of our local, state and federal partnerships.

Iberia Parish is fortunate to have effective leadership at our municipalities, Sheriff’s Office and Fire District who are dedicated to the well-being of our community and work well together.

We made sure we captured lessons learned here and in neighboring communities from these storms and took action to ensure Iberia Parish is prepared for them.

We are applying for more than $3 million in federal grants to harden critical parish facilities and purchase generators for our critical public safety and utility systems. We have also installed generator transfer switches at two other parish buildings so they can be powered by generators in the event of widespread power outages like we saw in all of these hurricanes, and our recently completed Category 5 hurricane rated emergency operations and 911 center has served us well.

One of our most important and most costly tasks in a major hurricane is the quick removal of debris from our streets. We have contracted with two national firms to pick up and dispose of this debris, and to monitor debris removal operations so we know we are getting what we pay for.

Our Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) volunteers are absolutely critical to our hurricane preparations, and they have been training all Winter and Spring to prepare for this year’s hurricane season. If you are interested in joining our team of CERT volunteers, please call my office or our Office of Emergency Preparedness at 337-369-4427.

While we will do everything in our power to protect Iberia Parish citizens and property in a hurricane, the most effective protection comes from prepared citizens, families and businesses. The state of Louisiana has an excellent preparedness website, getagameplan.org which I strongly recommend everyone visit and study. It has useful information on preparing your family, children and pets and for people with disabilities and on mitigating hazards to your property.

To keep you informed in an emergency Iberia Parish Government has provided our Parish Informational Notification System, or Iberia PINS. Iberia PINS allows us to quickly communicate accurate information in an emergency by text, email and phone call.

I encourage everyone to sign up for Iberia PINS using the Iberia PINS button at the bottom of the Iberia Parish Government website. Emergency information will also be posted on the Iberia Parish Government Facebook page and on the Iberia Parish Government website.

IBERIA PARISH PRESIDENT M. LARRY RICHARD writes a bi-monthly column. Prior to being elected Parish President, Richard represented District 13 as a councilman for 12 consecutive years