Durel’s Lafayette Parish Isaac Recap: Lafayette Live
City-Parish President Joey Durel dropped by “Mornings with Ken and Bernie” today to talk about Lafayette Parish in the aftermath of the storm that was Isaac for this week’s edition of Lafayette Live.
Though many homes throughout Acadiana lost power, Durel was relieved to report that Lafayette Parish was largely spared from the brunt of the storm.
Durel applauded the composure residents of Lafayette Parish displayed throughout the ordeal,
The people of Lafayette and our area had enough experience and took a calm common sense approach to the storm. I think people paid attention, thought, and realized that if they picked up things that could fly through their windows they wouldn’t have much to worry about.
For many across Lafayette Parish, the lasting memories of Isaac will be of the curfew imposed for the storm that wasn’t. When asked about the decision to enforce the curfew, the City-Parish President responded,
Actually I brought up the subject, and again this isn’t a decision that’s made by any one person. There were experts and professionals all around the table. We had every town in Lafayette Parish represented there, and pretty much everybody felt the call had to be made about a curfew, we knew the highest winds would be somewhere between the 6pm – 7pm range so we did it, it didn’t effect anybody. The kids could still go out and play, but we just didn’t need people out on the streets unnecessarily making emergency responders respond to calls that could have been avoided.
And the police knew to use digression and common sense. We understood that many people would have work, so if the police stopped you and you were polite, dressed for work, and not inebriated, there would not be any problem.
Before leaving, Durel addressed the devastation being felt throughout Plaquemines Parish and assured citizens of Lafayette Parish that the kind of flooding occurring there could never happen here.
It’s important for everyone to understand this – we’re fortunate to have local meteorologists that we get to pay attention to and who take a very common sense approach– you watch the national media, and they want drama, and they create as much drama as possible, but what you see happening at Plaquemine is impossible in Lafayette, not to say you won’t have local flooding, like what happened in Carencro earlier this year, but Lafayette parish is too high above sea level for a situation like in Plaquemine to occur.
City-Parish President Durel will have one more command center meeting today and will then turn his attention to aiding those who were affected by the storm.
To listen to the full interview, click the media player below.
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