With hurricane season in full swing, including several storms already having popped up in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, St. Bernard Parish sheriff’s officials are continuing to test boats and other equipment as well as stockpiling sandbags for residents who may want them in case of an emergency, Sheriff Jack Stephens said.
“Having taken the enormous hit from Hurricane Katrina in this parish, we intend to always be prepared for a hurricane season,’’ Sheriff Stephens said. “Getting ready in advance is the most important thing.’’
Members of the sheriff’s SWAT team trained on various types of boats from the Marine Division on Wednesday, July 23 to be prepared to immediately patrol neighborhoods for looters in case of any type of flooding from a rain event in the parish and more than 40,000 sandbags are stockpiled for use by residents, according to Chief Deputy Sheriff James Pohlmann.
“In preparation for hurricane season we have reviewed and updated the sheriff’s hurricane plan, prepared our Marine Division, inspected our sandbag inventory and tested equipment including generators and communications systems,’’ Pohlmann said.
He said the Sheriff’s Office also participated in a July 9 mock hurricane exercise with parish government and state officials to train regarding procedures for evacuation of residents and their pets in case of an actual emergency.
“If parish government orders an evacuation of residents in any approaching storm we will facilitate that and then lock down the parish to prevent non-residents from entering,’’ Pohlmann said.
In the event of an ordered evacuation, Pohlmann said, hopefully residents would comply and that would reduce the necessity for search and rescue operations if there was flooding in a storm, he said.
“But we would quickly turn to law enforcement functions, including patrol by boat if necessary, to protect property in the parish,’’ Pohlmann said.
“We don’t want residents to have to worry about burglars if they must evacuate,’’ he said. 
A major improvement since Hurricane Katrina is communications systems, including one agency being able to speak by radio to others, Pohlmann said. “We now have inter-operability in communications with other parish agencies as well as with the state and others in the region,’’ which addresses a major problem that took place after Katrina. “We never had that before.’’
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