National Guard to participate in disaster response exercises (Media Advisory)

State, local, federal agencies conduct joint training in two parish locations  

 

BATON ROUGE, La. – The Louisiana National Guard in partnership with state, local and federal agencies will be participating in the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness’ training exercise to test disaster response, March 23. As the 2013 hurricane season approaches, these agencies will be evaluating their ability to respond and test their level of preparedness at two location sites – the Fontainebleau State Park in St. Tammany Parish and the Grand Prairie Rest Area in St. Landry Parish.

The exercises will test LANG’s ability to coordinate SAR activities with other agencies to provide support to the state in the event of an emergency event in Louisiana.  In addition to intra-agency coordination, agencies will conduct training on air, water, and ground search and rescue operations, Lilly Pad Operations, Parish Collection Points, Communications Interoperability, and Points-of-Distribution (POD) Training.

 

The event will include an integrated press conference at each of the two parish locations and a capabilities demonstration at each training site.

 

The training will showcase the LANG and partner agencies’ ability to respond quickly to any and all emergency situations, and also test the response plan to identify possible deficiencies and also to evaluate the ability to respond to multiple missions simultaneously.

 

Participating agencies will include: St. Tammany Parish, St. Landry Parish, Evangeline Parish, St. Martin Parish, Acadia Parish, and Vermilion Parish, Louisiana State Police, St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, the Louisiana Department of Agriculture & Forestry, Department of Corrections, Louisiana State Fire Marshal’s Office, Department of Children and Family Services, Department of Health & Hospitals, Department of Transportation & Development and other local and federal emergency management agencies.

 

Media encouraged to attend

WHO:              Louisiana National Guard in support of GOHSEP

WHAT:            Disaster Response Exercise

WHEN:            Saturday, March 23, 2013 (times vary by location … see below)

 

WHERE:

St. Tammany Parish:

Fontainebleau State Park, 62883 Hwy. 1089, Mandeville, La., 70448

• 9–10 a.m. Media interviews and operations demonstrations
• 10 a.m. Unified Press Briefing
• Media Flights leave from:

 

Lakefront Airport

6001 Stars and Stripes Blvd.

New Orleans, La.

 

GOHSEP Helipad

7667 Independence Blvd., Baton Rouge, La.

 

• POC for this event is Capt. Lance Cagnolatti at (504) 259-4146

 

St. Landry Parish:

Grand Prairie Rest Area, Mile Marker 34 off I-49, Washington, La.

• 12 – 2 p.m. Media interviews and operations demonstrations
• 1 p.m. Unified Press Briefing
• Media Flights leave from:

 

Lake Charles Regional Airport

500 Airport Blvd.

Lake Charles, LA 70605

 

Lafayette Regional Airport

200 Terminal Drive

Lafayette, LA 70508

 

• POC for this event is Maj. Taysha Gibbs at (225) 678-8883

 

***Flights for the media are available from New Orleans Lakefront Airport, GOHSEP’s helipad in Baton Rouge, Lake Charles and Lafayette Regional Airports. Reservations are required and space is limited. Please RSVP to 2nd Lt. Rebekah Malone at rebekah.l.malone2.mil@mail.mil or (318) 290-5231

 

***REQUIRED INFORMATION NEEDED FOR PERSONS FLYING:

• First and last name
• Weight
• Last four of social security number