Allen Parish--Priority Issues

Economic and Workforce Development

• SW Louisiana Parishes need a reliable, long-term source of potable water.
• Allen Parish needs more good paying jobs.
• Allen Parish needs to diversify its economic base.
• More than 275 million board feet of damaged or destroyed timber valued at approximately $60 million.
• An estimated 27,800 acres of downed hardwood and softwood trees present a fire hazard.
• Canoeing, the oldest and most famous tourism/recreation activity, is out of business until the Ouiska Chitto River is cleaned up.

Environmental Management

• Reduce the flood impacts of recent and future storm events, allowing for future land development and farming in the Parish.

Education

• Allen Parish schools enrolled 298 evacuee students, of whom 104 remain. The schools were inadequately prepared to educate the new students due to unavailable space and lack of supplies.

Public Safety

• Need facilities to house the personnel who were the last ones to leave the southern parishes and the first ones to return.
• Lack of Emergency Operations Center forced use of available space at Sheriff's Office and various Police Departments/Fire Departments.
• Limited communications capabilities due to old and incompatible types of equipment.
• Little or no emergency power capabilities were available for essential human services, including limited emergency fuel.
• Lack of sufficient shelters to handle volume of evacuees, lack of basic services at the few “shelters of last resort," and lack of coordination/communication between shelters.
• State evacuation plan incorrectly assumed that evacuees would travel north and pass through Allen Parish, thus requiring no shelters in the parish.

Transportation and Infrastructure

• Improve emergency and general operating capacity of water and sewer utilities, reducing both the threat to public health and safety and this constraint on growth.
• Disorderly evacuation and recovery related to transportation in Allen Parish.  There was general chaos during the Katrina and Rita evacuations and in the immediate aftermath of the storm.