Working the Plan Lt. Col. Jerone Bostick, RFO Executive Officer, reviews team evacuation routes and procedures with 1st Sgt. Micchicco Thompson.  LA-RFO Photo by Spec. Larry Gleeson. Back to Features

Evacuation
Getting the RFO ready to perform or transition after The Next Storm
By Dave Harris, public affairs specialist, Louisiana Recovery Field Office

If another hurricane heads for Louisiana, 300 LA-RFO workers would instantly trim down to an even dirty dozen mission-essential key people. The remainder would return home, pending instructions. 

St. Paul District (MVP) is likely to take charge of the next Louisiana disaster response, relieving Memphis at a pre-determined response point. 

Planners early-on saw the need to transfer responsibility to a designated district out of harm’s way when a sister district suffers a disaster. Memphis District has led the Hurricanes Katrina and Rita recovery mission for New Orleans District. 

“The 12 would evacuate and interface with MVP; they would continue the current mission or hand their duties over to MVP for them to take over,” said Executive Officer Lt. Col. Jerone Bostick, depending on the severity of the damage. 

The facility at Port Allen Lock is currently in the Mississippi Valley Division op order as the evacuation site.  LA-RFO leaders, however, are looking at other alternatives, to cover a variety of storm and response scenarios.  

A site in Baton Rouge – the former RFO –at 1900 Lobdell is no longer available. 

The Victim Identification Center built by the LA-RFO after Katrina for the DMORT program in Carville, Louisiana, is a site under negotiation by St. Paul District as deployment headquarters. The Carville facility is a large, permanent 37-acre complex complete with kitchen, dining, sleeping and entertainment accommodations for well over 400 people. 

Bostick described the plan leading to possible evacuation during this hurricane season that began June 1. 

“We continuously monitor the situation in the Gulf,” he said. “If climatic events start to threaten coastal Louisiana or if a hurricane is lining up to run through New Orleans, our awareness level goes up. It equates to the national threat level. 

“The threat level is minimal now. Once we see developing climatic events, the level elevated once is orange. At that time, we’ll start reviewing our plan to make sure everybody is aware of the situation and their role in the plan. 

He said a determination would be made between five and seven days prior to an imminent evacuation.

“We would begin releasing people to their home station to get our footprint as small as possible,” he said. 

Closer to the time of landfall, roads are clogged; airlines are clogged and sometimes stopped; all modes of transportation out of New Orleans are backed up, making it extremely difficult later to release LA-RFO team members. 

“We’ve got all this in a timeline in the emergency operation plan, starting seven days out and graduating down to 96 hours before H-Hour and then to 72 hours in our transition from day to hours.” 

Personnel accountability is ongoing. Rosters are updated weekly; numbers change daily.  The LA-RFO currently has 324 members (as of 6/25). Reducing the footprint reduces personnel accountability. 

“When people arrive at their home station, we are no longer accountable for them; we’d be accountable only for the 12 mission-essential people.” 

He added that some individuals may have difficulties getting home. 

 “People taking flights should be OK, but with the ones driving, anything could happen. I hope they could call the rental company or AAA. Otherwise we would hope they’d call us; we may be able to figure out how to get them help.  

If a missing person cannot be reached, Bostick said, there usually is a very good reason. “They may be broken down or in an area where their cell phone doesn’t work. If we need to, we would ask local authorities along the route to assist.” 

“Reporting is going to be key.” 

The LA-RFO has a reporting system on the LA-RFO web site to help displaced employees contact the appropriate Corps teams for assistance or just stay in touch with their supervisors from their eventual evacuation location.

Visit that page ahead of time at http://www.mvm.usace.army.mil/RFO/displaced.htm