<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Calcasieu Parish police jurors and parish officials reflected on the aftermath of Tropical Storm Harvey and having to shift quickly from preparing for a possible direct hit to aiding thousands of flooded Southeast Texas residents.</span></p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">“I don’t think any other local jurisdiction in the country could’ve done what we did in going from response to a humanitarian effort on a dime,” Dick Gremillion, Calcasieu Parish Office of Emergency Preparedness director, said Thursday. “This easily could’ve gone the other way.”</span></p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">Parish Administrator Bryan Beam said the parish took in about 4,800 evacuees from Orange, Texas, and other areas, housing them in temporary local shelters before moving them to more permanent, state-run shelters.</span></p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">Gremillion said officials from other Southwest Louisiana parishes also helped in getting stranded residents to safety.</span></p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">“They’ve always been able to do things like this, but this time they really saved a lot of lives,” he said. “The people that they went to get only had their clothes on their back.”</span></p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">Gremillion said every department in the parish “was tasked with something” during Harvey. He said social media have changed how volunteers respond after a disaster.</span></p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">“You can go on Facebook now and say I need 500 people, and they’ll be there 30 minutes later,” Gremillion said. </span></p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">District 14 Police Juror Hal McMillin thanked panel President Kevin Guidry for his leadership during and after the storm. Guidry called it a “daunting task,” saying he learned from McMillin, who was president during Hurricane Rita’s landfall in 2005.</span></p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">Police jurors adopted a resolution approving an agreement with the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness for public assistance grant funding for Harvey. Gremillion said the parish is applying for assistance from FEMA to reimburse it for damage to bridges, boat launches, roads and drainage canals and for debris removal.</span></p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">“That all has to add up to a certain amount before they’ll grant that,” Gremillion said.</span></p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">Residents who have questions on individual assistance should visit the FEMA website for any updates, Gremillion said.</span></p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">Gremillion said roughly 500 homes in Calcasieu flooded during Harvey. They are being inspected, except those near the Sabine River, where water levels remain high.</span></p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">“There were homes flooded in Lake Charles, Moss Bluff, and a few in the Bell City-Hayes area,” Gremillion said.</span></p>