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May 26, 2007 - The Clarion Herald
Archdiocesan Disaster Coordinator Busy Planning, Training
By Peter Finney, Jr.
Colleen D’Aquin’s feet haven’t touched the ground much in the last 10 months. The new director of emergency management for the Archdiocese of New Orleans has been too busy putting her plans in place for the 2007 hurricane season.
D’Aquin is employed by Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans, and her major responsibilities are ensuring the safe evacuation of hundreds of residents from residences operated by Catholic Charities and the archdiocese.
Some of those residences, including Padua House, have residents who have severe developmental disabilities. D’Aquin also has responsibility for the potential evacuation of senior residences run by Christopher Homes, archdiocesan nursing homes and Project Lazarus, a hospice for AIDS patients.
“My role with the residential facilities, whether they are run by Catholic Charities or the archdiocese, is to find alternative sites for the residents to go,” D’Aquin said.
Padua House residents will be taken in special buses to the Maryhill Retreat Center in the Diocese of Alexandria, and the agreement calls for the archdiocese to provide full care for those residents.
“We’ve had to coordinate with the Red Cross (in Alexandria) to give us the support staff to do the cooking services,” D’Aquin said. “We’re in the process of setting all this up.”
D’Aquin has established scaled time lines, starting 96 hours before projected landfall of a hurricane, for each entity under her supervision.
“The biggest challenge is getting the residents out in a timely manner and having the manpower to assist in getting them in the buses and loading up all the supplies they need,” D’Aquin said.
Seminarians from Notre Dame Seminary have been enlisted to provide the muscle for lifting frail elderly from Chateau de Notre Dame nursing home onto buses for the evacuation out of town. D’Aquin also has gotten assistance from AmeriCorps to provide helpers in an evacuation.
“We did a formal training three weeks ago with a mock drill,” D’Aquin said. “We went through body mechanics issues regarding the elderly, health issues and behavioral issues. The elderly can be very frightened, and they don’t know where they’re going. That can affect their cognition. One of the challenges is having to carry residents from wheelchairs into the bus. We could use more people to help.”
In previous hurricane evacuations, nursing home residents have been taken to Baton Rouge, where they are cared for temporarily at two parishes before being dispersed to other nursing facilities in central and north Louisiana.
Christopher Homes executive director Dennis Adams said he plans to follow the guidelines of Orleans, Jefferson and St. Tammany parishes in any potential evacuations.
“If there is a Category 3, 4 or 5 storm and the civil authorities call for an evacuation, we are going to require all of our residents to evacuate and we will close our buildings down,” Adams said. “We’ve tried that before Katrina with Hurricane Dennis, and we got a huge backlash both from residents and residents’ families.
“But we’re in a different time now, and we’ve seen what can happen with Category 3, 4 and 5 storms. There are still some unanswered questions as far as levee systems are concerned. We’ve got to err on the side of safety.”
Those Christopher Homes properties include Christopher Inn; Holy Angels Apartments; The Apartments at Mater Dolorosa; Metairie Manor I, II and III; Place Du Bourg; Rouquette Lodge I, II and III; Satchmo Plaza and Wynhoven Apartments I and II. There are 1,200 residents living in Christopher Homes properties.
“The archdiocese has recognized the need to take a different stance on this,” Adams said. “We need to err on the side of safety for the residents. We fully expect and pray that our residents will recognize the necessity of that and that our residents will use their self-evacuation plan and leave with their family or friends, which will be their most comfortable way of leaving.”
Adams said each Christopher Homes resident is required to fill out a personal evacuation plan. If any resident does not have a family member or friend to help them evacuate, the residential director will make arrangements with the local civil authorities to ensure that they can evacuate.
In addition to her work on archdiocesan evacuation plans, D’Aquin has begun training for parishes in disaster response, using the “Matthew 25” disaster manual that was developed in the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston and is now in use in the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux. The manual includes a comprehensive disaster checklist for parishes and schools. So far D’Aquin has trained 40 parishes in the archdiocese.
“We don’t have an overall disaster plan for archdiocesan churches, but that may be something we look at in the future,” she said.
D’Aquin suggests individuals should pay close attention to local authorities in determining if and when they need to evacuate. Those persons who have no safe way of evacuating should call their local authorities now to register for the public evacuation assistance program.
“If you have a means to get out of the city, definitely make a personal evacuation plan,” D’Aquin said. “You should have at least two alternative places where you can go. I would also have a checklist ahead of time with all the things you need to gather very quickly. You can even put some important papers in airtight containers and have them ready. Those are things like insurance papers, the title to your house, medications and prescriptions. You should also have a plan for your pets as well.”
D’Aquin said the city of New Orleans does have a pet evacuation plan, which includes dropping off pets at a local kennel.
“To my knowledge, at this time, you do not evacuate together,” she said. “You check your pet into a kennel and they deliver the pets somewhere else and you connect with them at a later time when you are both in a more stable place.”
D’Aquin is working with city officials and other nonprofits to develop a needs assessment that would list the resources it could provide in case of a disaster.
“In our case, the strength of Catholic Charities is case management,” D’Aquin said.
Another possible new technological resource is an early-warning system that would send urgent messages to individuals within 30 seconds through phone calls, text messages, e-mail, pagers or fax machines. That system might be used for archdiocesan agencies and schools.
The Diocese of Baton Rouge also has offered the use of the CYO gymnasium at Sacred Heart parish if the archdiocese has to set up long-term operations again in Baton Rouge.
Anyone interested in helping with evacuation of nursing home residents should contact D’Aquin at (504) 310-8767. There will be another training session within the next month.
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