The Expo will offer St. Bernard residents the opportunity to engage with experts about the techniques, strategies and materials being used in the spill response.

The Expo will feature experts and representatives from BP Claims, Wildlife and Fisheries, Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, EPA, NOAA, USCG, Dispersants, LA Spirit, Louisiana Department of Social Services, SNAP, LA Work Force, OSHA, SBA, Alternative Response Technologies, Dept of Labor, and LSU Agricultural Center. These agencies will answer questions and provide visual information on the various tools, equipment and strategies that are being used in the response, including booms, burns, sand berms, skimming and dispersants.

Representatives will be available to address concerns about environmental quality, wildlife, safety and resources available to residents. Information will also be available to the supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Claims representatives will be available for any questions or concerns residents might have on the claims process.

Georgia Saucier, RN, BSN was the guest speaker.  She is the Director of Women’s Services at Ochsner Medical Center on the North Shore.  Candice Firmin gave remarks on behalf of the graduating class.
           
For more information on nursing and other programs at Nunez Community College visit the website at www.nunez.edu.

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St. Bernard Sheriff's Department Sergeant Kirt Arnold (right) and a group of sheriff's deputies learn more about autism at a training seminar held Aug. 10 at the department's Paris Road substation. Photo by Frank McCormack

With the number of children diagnosed with autism on the rise across the country, the St. Bernard Sheriff’s Office is taking steps to help its officers be prepared to effectively engage those living with the developmental disorder.

The department is helping its officers better interact with people living with autism in two ways. First, deputies now have access to a two-hour training session that offers videos and discussion to help officers know what to expect when engaging persons with autism. In addition, the department is now compiling a database of registered people with autism so that deputies will be able to anticipate communication needs before initiating contact.

Autism awareness has been on the rise across the country the past few years. In 2007, studies indicated that one in 150 children would develop autism. By 2009, that number increased 14 percent.

“More information is being gathered each year on autism awareness. National statistics indicate one in 110 children are now diagnosed with autism and the number is growing percentage-wise each year,” St. Bernard Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy James Pohlmann said.

Sergeant Kirt Arnold, a 10-year veteran with the St. Bernard Sheriff’s office, is leading the training courses, which began Monday. In just the first two days of training, close to 40 officers attended. Arnold said the classes are currently voluntary, but that every deputy is expected to attend. When the entire sheriff’s department has been trained, the St. Bernard Fire Department will then receive training.

“Most like in a traffic stop or some other call, you’re going to come across someone with autism, you may just not know it,” Arnold said.

As part of the training, each student receives an index card with general information about autism. On one side, common characteristics of people living with autism is offered. The opposite side lists tips for interacting with those people.

For instance, to address some of the communication challenges brought on by autism, deputies are encouraged to use simple language, speak slowly, use concrete terms and allow extra time for response. Officers are also encouraged to be careful in how they restrain a person with autism, due to poor respiratory muscle development.

The department also has obtained a computer-aided dispatch system through which residents with family members who have autism may register them with the Sheriff’s Department. When a police officer is dispatched to the house, the officer will be notified that someone with autism lives at that address.

To register a family member or dependent, call the Sheriff’s Office at 504-278-7632. Leave a name and daytime phone number, including area code, as well as the name of the person being registered.

Experts do not know whether the increase in the number autism cases is due to better detection and reporting, an actual increase in the number of cases, or both. While there is no cure for autism, intensive, early treatment can make a big difference in the lives of many children with the disorder. Males with autism outnumber females with the disorder four to one.

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Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Bernard Catholic Church are on track to hold the first confirmation classes in St. Bernard since Hurricane Katrina. The two churches will share one program.

With the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina just a few days away, two local parishes are marking the milestone by holding their first religion classes since the storm.

Our Lady of Lourdes Church and St. Bernard Catholic Church are preparing to launch their first lineup of religion and confirmation preparation classes since Hurricane Katrina inundated both churches on August 29, 2005.

“Now that both churches are up and running, it’s time to start bringing religion to the children again,” said Rhonda Serpas, who’s coordinating the effort.

Religion classes will be offered for children in first grade to fifth grade on Tuesdays from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Our Lady of Lourdes Church on Colonial Boulevard in Violet. A new mobile building is being installed.

Confirmation Prep I and II classes will be offered on Wednesdays from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at St. Bernard Catholic Church on Bayou Road for sixth graders through high school students. Classes will be held in Iverson Hall.

Registration will be Aug. 24 between 6:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. at Our Lady of Lourdes and Aug. 25 from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at St. Bernard Church.

Parents are reminded that children who attend a Catholic school must enroll in Confirmation Prep I and II both in the 9th and 10th grades. Parents of children in the 11th or 12th grades who have not attended the confirmation classes may contact Serpas at 504-682-4093 to arrange for special instruction.

Classes should begin in early October. Volunteers to teach and assist are still needed.

After Hurricane Katrina, St. Bernard Catholic Church reopened in November 2007, Serpas recalled. Before the church could support a priest of its own, Father Danny from Our Lady of Prompt Succor would lead mass at the historic St. Bernard church.

Father John Arnone came to the church in late 2008 and soon got Our Lady of Lourdes back up and running. The churches still share a priest and, quite fittingly, the churches will share religious education efforts.

Serpas said it’s another way to bring some closure to many people still struggling to recover from Katrina.

“It’s one more chapter closed in the Katrina saga,” Serpas said.

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“The first was to see how much land they have created out there, but it was especially gratifying to see the pipes working and the dredge working. The last time we had gone out there they had stopped the dredging,” Jindal said.

Eight dredges have sucked up and spit out 1.8 million cubic yards of material,  creating berms that are catching oil on a daily basis. ”Just one day last week, the Louisiana National Guard picked up over 500 pounds of oiled debris from that sand berm. Everyday tar balls are washing up there,” Jindal stated.

“With nearly three quarters of a mile of the island now sitting out of the water now, most of it almost at the elevation of 6 feet, this is an encouraging stage of our defense and our offensive support against the oil fight that we continue to be in the middle of,” St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro stated at the press conference following a flyover with Jindal.

Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser, also on the overflight, stated, “Some people project we will see oil for one to two years when different storms come ashore in coastal Louisiana. So we ask the Corps of Engineers, ‘You see it is working. You see it is not hurting anything. Issue the other permits.’”

The Governor and parish officials asked that the Army Corps of Engineers quickly grant approval on the additional permits for the remaining 18 proposed sand berms.

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Local 4-H agent Wayne Burgess was on hand to explain the AgCenter’s difficult financial position.

“At the beginning of July, the president of the LSU system, Dr. Lombardi, imposed a 23 percent cut across the various colleges,” Burgess said. “What that’s going to do for us in the LSU AgCenter is it’s probably going to eliminate about 200 positions.”

More than 90 of those positions cut would probably be field personnel, Burgess said.

Burgess said he and other 4-H leaders are hoping to fill the funding gap by soliciting support from local governing bodies, the State Legislature and LSU’s Board of Regents and by better explaining just how important the AgCenter and 4-H programs are to the state.

That critical educational role is seen no better than in St. Bernard Parish.

Post Katrina, Burgess and the 4-H program have played a prominent role in leading Chalmette High School students to plant thousands of cypress seedings in St. Bernard’s delicate wetland areas.

“We probably had about 300 high school students that helped us plant seedlings,” Burgess said. “We probably planted about 5,000 seedlings, and a lot of those students had never been past Meraux.”

“It was a good opportunity to get them involved and to let them see it with their own eyes,” he said.

The council unanimously passed the resolution requesting state and federal leaders maintain the full funding of the St. Bernard Parish branch of the LSU AgCenter. A final decision on the proposed budget cuts will not be made until the end of August.

For more information about the LSU AgCenter, go online to www.lsuagcenter.com.

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Eighteen-year-old Rashelle Vandenborre, pictured here at her alma mater Chalmette High School, is making an attempt to become the St. Bernard Parish School Board's youngest member.

Most teenagers run for the hills when high school is over, but not Rashelle Vandenborre. The 18-year-old Chalmette High graduate is making a bid to become the St. Bernard Parish School Board’s youngest member and aims to bring what some say is a welcomed new perspective.

“It comes as a surprise because she’s so young, but on the other hand, it might be refreshing,” said Dirk Tillman, Vandenborre’s former English teacher at Chalmette High. “It might be nice to have a voice on the School Board who is so young and is connected with the youth.”

It’s that connectedness that Vandenborre said she hopes pushes her through.

“I feel like I know what’s going on,” she contends. “I feel like I know what needs to be done. I’m just fresh and new and I would know more about it. I’m not saying (older people) don’t, but they haven’t been in a classroom for a while now. I think they need a mixture of both in the school board.”

Vandenborre said her priorities reflect what she experienced in school, and few could argue with them: Curbing the dropout rate and reducing teen pregnancy.

“I have friends who’ve gotten pregnant all throughout high school. And not just seniors. It’s getting pretty bad, to freshmen and sophomores,” she recalled. “It’s going to affect their lives and everyone else’s life. It could create poverty in St. Bernard.”

Vandenborre’s no stranger to politics. At age 16, she campaigned with her father, Henry Vandenborre Jr., in a successful run for Ward C constable. And according to her parents, that’s probably when the bug bit her.

“She’s the one who got out there and walked with her daddy,” said her mother, Marina. “She walked door to door with her daddy.”

Though her campaign will soon be in full swing, Rashelle wasn’t the first Vandenborre seeking the position. When her brother, Henry III, decided not to run for the same office, Rashelle stepped in at the last minute, Marina said.

The intrepid 18-year-old graduated from Chalmette High in May with a 3.8 GPA. She participated in Future Business Leaders of America, Pride Platoon, Science Club and Beta Club, where she helped raise money for other students to attend Beta Convention, said Tillman, the school’s Beta Club sponsor.

“She has a real sense of morality and volunteerism, just doing the right thing, which is really special and I think we need more of that,” Tillman said.

Despite her youthful energy and eagerness, neither her father nor her former English teacher have any delusions about her lack of worldly experience. If she wins, Henry said, she’s in for a rough ride.

“To be honest with you, that first year is going to be a lot for her to take on, but she can do anything she wants. She can do anything she puts her head to.”

Politics can be a dirty business, but Marina and Henry said they told their daughter to take the high road.

“If people are out there knocking the other person, why would you want them?” Marina said. “Who else do you think they’re going to knock around?”

“I don’t want her to say nothing about nobody,” she continued. “As long as she keeps it a clean deal, she’ll go ahead and take it.”

Vandenborre will face off against Darleen Asevedo and Louis Wineski III for the District 3 School Board seat. Her opponents were not available for comment by press time.

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Remaining undefeated in two distance races during the summer track season, 11-year-old Brock Silva continued to spearhead the St. Bernard Flyers at the district qualifier for the AAU Junior Olympic Games set for Virginia at the end of July.

Joining Silva as the mainstays of the Flyers, Chalmette High senior field performer André Dorsey won three medals for the parish age-based summer track and field club, including the gold medal in the young men’s high jump at Tad Gormley Stadium June 18-20.

Attending a basketball camp in Tennessee in anticipation of her senior year at Chalmette High, Jordan Hartney, who has won 10 medals in three throwing events in just a few meets this summer, likely would have been in position to add three more to her summer collection at this big AAU meet.

Maddie Myers, an upcoming seventh-grader at Trist Middle School and another key member of the Flyers, turned in strong races despite the brutally hot temperatures and triple digit heat index for distance running.

Myers qualified for the national meet in all three of the midget girls’ division (12-year-old) distance races – third in the 3,000 (14:51.31) and fourth in the 1500-meters (6:16.95) and 800-meter run (3:04.21).

By finishing in the top four places in any event, the St. Bernard athletes qualified to compete in 10 events at the age-group national track and field championship meet.

Running in the sub-midget division (11-year-old boys), Silva continued his gold-medal-winning, undefeated performances as he claimed the 3,000-meter run (13:32.16) and the 1,500-meter race (6:07.34) for the Holy Cross School sixth grader.

Dorsey qualified for the JO Games in all four of the field events he entered, including his gold-medal winning 6-2 leap in the high jump.

The upcoming Chalmette High three-sport senior and last spring’s district and regional Field Most Valuable Performer award winner, Dorsey placed third in the javelin (161-8) and discus (101-5) and fourth in the triple jump (43-6).

Nicole Henninger, who competes for the Lady Owls, placed fourth in the intermediate girls javelin (58-4).

Even thought she didn’t qualify for the national meet, primary girls’ Annelise Meyaski was in position to battle for the gold medal in the 800-meter run. Leading the race after the first lap and nearly half of the second lap, Meyaski and another runner collided, knocking the Flyers’ runner to the ground.

However, Meyaski showed her toughness and got back up and finished fifth (3:31.10) and would have easily run a personal record had it not been for the tragic collision. In the 400-meter dash, she did run a PR, clocking 1:33.65, the day before the tough race.

In the young men’s 1,500-meter run, Daniel Matherne, a senior at Chalmette and the district’s 800-meter runnerup during the prep season last spring, finished sixth in the longer race (5:08.64). He’s using the summer season to prepare for the four-lap distance event, the first time he’s ever raced that long.

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The scope of the evacuation depends on the size of the system in the gulf.

All work oil spill work sites will be evacuated 72 hours prior to tropical force winds hitting the Louisiana coast. A staging area is being secured inside of the levee system to permanently relocate all oil spill response resources for the parish. Resources will be transported to the appropriate work areas as needed, thereby negating the need to evacuate resources each time a weather event threatens the area. The decision to remove already deployed boom from the water will be made at the appropriate time depending upon the particular weather event the area is threatened by.

If the parish is affected by a major storm that pushes oily water into the areas outside of the levee protection system, that area will become a hot zone. Post-storm damage assessment teams of St. Bernard Parish Fire Department, Sheriffs Department, Public Works, Atmos, Entergy, DEQ, EPA, US Coast Guard and pollution investigation experts from BP will inspect the affected areas to determine the level of contamination. Once the inspection is complete, the necessary actions will be taken to clean up these areas. Residents will not be allowed into the affected areas until they have been declared safe, at which point residents may return to their homes and businesses.

To facilitate the most effective planning for both oil spill related and general parish evacuations, two separate command structures have been put into place. One dedicated for each evacuation.

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