Hurricane Response Contact Us
During emergency situations, the Department is responsible for assisting in the evacuation of local jails and housing offender evacuees until their home institution is operational again.
In response to Gustav, state correctional facilities began preparing Monday, August 25, 2008 for the storm, making sure generators and other critical equipment were in good working order, ensuring transportation assets like buses and vans were operational and making sure they had enough gas, food and other supplies on hand to handle additional evacuees.
During the activation, the IMC is staffed 24/7. One of the biggest challenges during offender evacuations is to decide which offenders will be evacuated to which facilities and the transportation assets that it will take to accomplish evacuation. It is very much a numbers game, which is why it is crucial that parishes follow a specific timeline for evacuation. If one parish waits too long to decide to evacuate, it could cause problems for those parishes that have made the decision but are further down on the priority list. Evacuation decisions are made based upon which parishes face the biggest threat as well as when contraflow (traffic measures) may be activated.
Offender evacuees have to undergo an intake process once they arrive at their temporary state correctional facility housing site. They are screened at intake for any significant medical or mental health problems, vitals are taken and they have their pictures and fingerprints taken for identification purposes.
The evacuees are fed a meal and then go to their assigned housing areas at the facility. Since all state correctional facilities are at capacity for the most part, the Department utilizes gym floors, classrooms and other appropriate space. It’s our hope that the offender evacuees will return to their original facilities as soon as it is safe to do so. Safety is always a concern, so we have extra staff helping with security.
Generally, offender evacuees are very appreciative of the efforts taken by the Department to keep them out of harm’s way. During emergency situations like Gustav, each of our 6,500 employees work to accomplish the monumental task of transporting, identifying, feeding and care of more than 5,500 offenders. Many employees work long hours to accomplish this mission and it’s one we take very seriously to keep the public safe.
In addition to taking on offender evacuees, the Department is very involved with pet sheltering. An obvious oversight in the aftermath of Katrina, pet evacuations have become a very important part of emergency planning in
The scope of DOC’s tasks during emergency situations doesn’t stop with jail evacuations and pet sheltering. Our state correctional facilities and Probation and Parole Districts are the backbone of many small communities around the state and we assist our neighbors in need whenever possible.
Here are just a few examples:
- Several correctional facilities assisted local authorities loading/unloading MRE’s and bottled water
- Assisted local authorities in filling sandbags (Town of
- Several correctional facilities sent offender work crews to clear main roads immediately after the storm so first responders and then citizens could get where they needed to go
- Offender crews picked up limbs and other debris around the state capitol, LSU campus and local schools
- Probation and Parole officers provided security escorts for inmate evacuations prior to the storm
- P&P Officers provided traffic control assistance to Louisiana State Police during contraflow activation
- P&P officers provided crucial community policing resources to local police and sheriffs’ departments (Livingston, Assumption, St. James, Winn, Terrebonne and Pt. Coupee parishes, New Orleans Police Department, Livonia PD and New Roads PD)
- P&P officers provide security assistance to several correctional facilities in Gustav’s aftermath and worked security details for inmates who were hospitalized during and after the storm
- Headquarters coordinated emergency food service contracts (in its ESF-6 support role) for shelters in Terrebonne, Lafourche and Pt. Coupee parishes when FEMA resources could not support mass feeding functions at those locations
- P&P Officers are assisting other state agencies by providing security assistance in the aftermath of Gustav, including ALL of the DSS Emergency Food Stamp sign-up locations
