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Calcasieu Parish Priority Issues

Economic and Workforce Development

Diversify our economic base and create quality-wage jobs to strengthen the community’s resilience in future storms
Develop locally-owned, home-grown businesses emphasizing value-added processing to strengthen the community’s resilience in future storms
Convert community assets into economic assets: lakefront, river, natural resources, downtown redevelopment, and area redevelopment to strengthen the region’s resiliency in future storms (i.e. a strong downtown core adds economic resiliency to the region)
Restore and expand our tourism industry to strengthen the region’s resilience in future storms
Improve workforce development, trade skills, and vocational skills training to become more self-sufficient as a community in the response and recovery to future disasters; reduce the post-disaster return and recovery with trained local resources

Environmental Management

Provide greenways, parks, and landscaping with mitigation measures such that they both improve the quality of life and flood control in the community (e.g. the downtown lake and river fronts that were damaged by storm surge)
Provide debris removal in our waterways, terrestrial environments, and neighborhoods: create ways to minimize debris and damage in future storms
Improve parish-wide wastewater system to prevent or limit impacts to water quality after storms and flood events
Return and strengthen eco-tourism that has suffered due to the damage to natural resources from Rita

Flood Protection and Coastal Restoration

Enhance wetlands and shoreline protection, watershed management, and flood control to protect us from future storms and damage
Provide greenways, parks, and landscaping that can assist with flood control

Human Services

Improve housing and residential care facilities and support services for the elderly, special-needs patients, and indigent before, during and after a disaster
Repair, enhance and maintain parish recreational parks and facilities in the rebuilding after the storm

Education

Build improved educational system and facilities that can quickly return to operation after future disasters
Develop a well-rounded educational system, building on academic and trade skills that match jobs needed in this community and that prepares these added local resources for future events strengthening the community and region’s ability to plan, prepare, respond, and recover from future disasters

Public Health and Healthcare

Create a shared information system and information network for health and human services that can be sustained though a disaster

Public Safety

Enhance mitigation measures by enforcing building codes, maintenance of buildings and trees to minimize storm damage, and bury utilities underground
Improve evacuation with improvement to roads and routes, traffic control, and with a parish-wide transportation system for the elderly, special needs patients, and indigents
Develop comprehensive communication system that includes rural areas, businesses, industry, and schools that will assist us during evacuations as well as correcting our general communication deficiencies
Protect evacuation services by providing back-up generators and fuel for critical systems and essential public facilities, shelter, and support for emergency responders

Transportation and Infrastructure

Improve parish-wide public transit systems, roads, and highway infrastructure to provide for the efficient and safe evacuation of the region in future disasters
Repair and upgrade parish-wide drainage systems, sewer systems, and flood control systems that improve our parish and that can be sustained through disasters, allowing a quick return
Repair, expand, and maintain the port, air, and rail infrastructure and support facilities that were damaged by Rita and need to be protected from future closures due to storm events

Housing and Community Development

Re-build our community in a way that is safer, stronger, and disaster resistant, allowing us to quickly recover from future disasters
In the recovery and rebuilding, revitalize our communities and neighborhoods through beautification programs that involve the parish, local governments, schools, church groups, scouts, and other community groups
Repair and improve existing housing that was damaged by the storm
Develop affordable new housing, new programs, and housing options that were already in short supply but exacerbated by both Katrina (i.e., 10,000 new residents) and Rita (i.e. 19,338 destroyed homes)
Increase home ownership for low-income and moderate-income families in the rebuilding of the post-disaster housing supply
Develop and enforce zoning and building codes and implement unified development code to build smarter, stronger and to be more sustainable for future storms
Engage community in community planning to determine future growth patterns to safer areas that are less vulnerable to future flooding and surge events
Increase inter-governmental cooperation/collaboration for shared services and facilities, and parish-wide planning and development that will strengthen the community’s ability to plan, prepare, respond and aid recovery efforts in future disasters
Re-build our community in ways that will minimize damage from future storms and allow us to return quickly to our lives