How did EBR do in the winter storm? Mayor (and former coach) Sid Edwards say it’s time to ‘report the movie’

Baton Rouge – Mayor President Sid Edwards said Friday that East Baton Rouge Parish’s emergency surgery center has set the operation after five days of continuous surveillance of cold weather, which included the city’s second lowest temperature and its second highest snowfall.

“The biggest deal for us is to report the film, so to speak, and look at what we can do better,” said Edwards, who until last month was a football coach at Istrouma High School.

Edwards thanked the local community and local officials for their help to keep people away from the roads and noted that it was his “first rodeo” during an emergency as mayor’s president.

“People were excellent,” he said. “There were many questions about a curfew or not. We didn’t have to hold a curfew. The good old people in Baton Rouge knew what to do and how to act and they came through as shining stars.”

The city parish set up several heating homes and sought to move people inside as temperatures dropped to 7 degrees, which corresponded to the low point on February 14, 1899. A day earlier, February 13, 1899, the temperature dropped to 2 degrees.

More than 400 people were taken into the shelters. Everyone returned home or was taken to other more permanent shelters, said assistant chief administrative officer Jeff Leduff.

Leduff and Edwards also noted that advice -woman Carolyn Coleman helped two of the homeless who sought shelter in the city’s heating centers to get job interviews.

Members of the Mayor’s Security and Emergency Preparedness Office, as well as local police, EMS and Fire Authorities, said the city was managing the other end of the winter storm largely untouched, mostly thanks to proactive measures taken in the days before to the minus degrees, that arrives on Tuesday.

Baton Rouge Police Chief Tj Morse said his officers closed 70 streets during the freezing, and that they brought dozens of homeless people to shelters. Now Morse says things are “back to act as normal in the city of Baton Rouge.”

Fire Manager Michael Kimble said there were seven fires during the freezing, but “No fire was in relation to the abuse of heaters.”

Edwards said 33,600 pounds of salt and 84 cubikyard sand were used to process and protect priority routes. Central Throughway was the last way to reopen. It got the clear Friday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6sqra39bxc