NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
MORNING REPORT
BLACKBERRY EDITION
Monday, October 3, 2005
INCIDENTS
Gulf Coast Areas
Update on Hurricane Recovery Operations
Reports on recovery operations from both Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita have been consolidated into just one report.
Jean Lafitte NHP&P/New Orleans Jazz NHP
The Eastern IMT (Gordon Wissinger, IC) is charged with both assisting the employees of the two parks and with overseeing the overall NPS response to the hurricane.
Employee Assistance Branch - Branch staff continue to update assistance program information and are preparing a toolkit for the next incident team. A packet has been prepared for the FEMA liaison to facilitate trailer requests. Mary Beth Weston will become the lead for this branch today. The Employee Assistance Center is located at the Wetlands Acadian Cultural Center in Thibodaux, LA (985-448-1471). Peer support groups are also located at the Wetlands Acadian Cultural Center and the Acadian Cultural Center in Lafayette (337-232-0789).
Resources and Facilities Branch - The FMSS assessment team traveled to Chalmette yesterday. All artifacts have been retrieved, with the exception of one cannon which is scheduled to be removed. The visitor center is scheduled for demolition. This demolition will be undertaken by local AD firefighters. At 419 Decatur, staff continued to air out the building and there were no mold issues. An FMSS team has been assigned to assess Cane River Creole NHP. A small crew continues to clear debris at Barataria. Fifteen employees are scheduled to work Monday at this site. Phone lines and computer lines are in place.
Law Enforcement Branch - Rangers continued to escort personnel and staff into affected areas.
Gulf Islands NS
A second Eastern IMT (Rick Brown, IC) returned to the park and transitioned with the Western IMT (Denny Ziemann, IC) on Saturday, October 1st.
Significant progress has been made in Hurricane Katrina recovery work in the mainland section of the park (Davis Bayou Unit), with clean-up work nearing completion. Crews are in the process of rebuilding a 200-foot section of a damaged boardwalk near the campground. Rehab work (including sheet rock replacement) is continuing on park housing, along with electrical rewiring of park housing and campground RV sites.
The incident commander, safety officer and operations chief visited Horn Island on Saturday to conduct the first damage assessment of park structures and to evaluate options for debris removal. Clean-up work on 25 miles of shoreline on East Ship, West Ship and Horn Islands is scheduled to be completed within two weeks.
Shoreline debris clearing is about 75% complete on West Ship Island. No work was done on the islands on Sunday due to choppy and rough seas with wave heights of five to seven feet. Crews were diverted to other recovery work on the mainland.
A contractor for the US Coast Guard was on site on Saturday to make arrangements for removal of hazardous materials.
Law enforcement personnel are providing protection operations on the mainland and boat operations to the islands (for protection and operational support).
Employee assistance is providing assistance to employees to expedite comp claims and to obtain FEMA assistance and support from E&AA.
Big Thicket NP
The Central IMT (Eddie Lopez, IC) is charged with assisting the parks and employees affected by Hurricane Rita, primarily Big Thicket NP, and with supporting communities around the park.
As the short-term emergency situation is stabilized, staff members at Big Thicket National Preserve are starting to look at potential long-term hurricane related impacts on the park.
Lisa Jameson is the park's biologist. On Sunday morning, she traveled to the Big Sandy Unit to see how Texas trailing phlox weathered Hurricane Rita. The phlox is just one species in the park's diverse ecosystem affected by the hurricane. Curtis Hoagland, the chief of resource management, thinks that the many blown down and uprooted trees will have a significant impact. He believes there may be an increase in the spread of invasive species and Southern pine bark beetles and greater potential for wildland fire over the next several years.
While biologists look towards long-term impacts, law enforcement rangers deal with the current challenges arising from the unsettled conditions in the wake of Hurricane Rita. Recognizing that the emergency situation would stretch the park's small ranger staff thin, the Intermountain special events and tactics team (SETT) was called in to help.
Dale Coker's day started off on a patrol to the town of Woodville to respond to a report of a leaking gas line. The fire started off as a 100 foot wall, and Coker and others had to close the road and evacuate the area because there was a potential that the tanker could explode. Coker then drove back to park headquarters to meet up with Big Thicket ranger Johnny Stafford. They then headed out to patrol the Neches River to assess damage to houseboats.
Additional Information
A web site has been established as a repository for official documents related to hurricane recovery operations: HYPERLINK "http://inside.nps.gov/waso/waso.cfm?prg=15&lv=1" http://inside.nps.gov/waso/waso.cfm?prg=15&lv=1.
[Betsy Haynes Deputy IO, IMT, JELA/JAZZ; Dorene Ruffing, IO, IMT, GUIS; Al Nash, IO, IMT, BITH]
JOBS
Big Bend NP
Two GS-025-9 Protection Ranger Positions
The park is seeking qualified candidates interested in lateral transfer assignments. Positions are open in the park at Panther Junction and Castolon. The positions offer traditional ranger experiences, including wildland and structural fire, EMS, SAR, backcountry and horse patrol duties, river patrol, and a full range of visitor and resource protection assignments within the 801,163 acre park. The park has an excellent K-8 school and outstanding recreational opportunities. Dual career opportunities are possible. Interested persons should contact district ranger David Van Inwagen at 432-477-2597 or district ranger Kathy Hambly at 432-477-2225 for further information. [Chief Ranger's Office]
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Prepared by Visitor and Resource Protection, WASO, with the cooperation and support of Delaware Water Gap NRA.
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