NEW ORLEANS – The Federal Emergency Management Agency recently announced an additional $1.2 million in recovery aid to Louisiana Facility Planning and Control to rebuild the physical plant at the Louisiana State University School of Dentistry, including mitigation measures to help prevent damage from future storms.
“The LSU School of Dentistry has been a New Orleans landmark since 1972,” said FEMA’s Louisiana Recovery Office Deputy Director of Programs Andre Cadogan. “The school educates a significant number of future dentists, hygienists and lab technicians and could not afford to be lost to Katrina. We have all worked together to bring this school back, not only as it was before but with added mitigation efforts to strengthen it against future hurricanes.”
LSUSD, located at 1100 Florida Avenue on a 22-acre tract of land near New Orleans City Park, was flooded with approximately 5 feet of water from Hurricane Katrina. The water stood in the facility for two weeks, damaging, among other things, the physical plant’s architectural, mechanical and electrical components. Following Katrina, the school relocated to the South Campus of LSU in Baton Rouge until it was able to return to New Orleans in August 2007.
Prior to the hurricane, the physical plant, built in 1971, generated and supplied chilled water, soft water, hot water, compressed air and building steam to the administration and clinical buildings. As part of the renovation process, the school proposes to utilize FEMA’s Public Assistance mitigation funding to elevate mechanical, electrical and plumbing equipment and the incinerator. Additionally, mitigation will fund environmental control generators to provide power during a similar storm event.
“We are most appreciative of this next step towards a return towards normalcy of our campus and anxiously anticipate FEMA approval of the next important mitigation project related to our clinical and research facilities,” said Henry A. Gremillion, DDS, MAGD, Dean of the LSUHSC School of Dentistry.
More than 4,000 dentists, hygienists and lab technicians have been educated at LSUSD, equating to 75 percent of the dental health care workers in Louisiana having been trained at the school.
Louisiana Facility Planning and Control owns the Dental School facility, which is part of the larger Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center complex. To date, FEMA has obligated approximately $188.9 million in public assistance funding for Hurricane Katrina-related recovery work at LSU-HSC. This figure includes the recent $1.2 million in funding.
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When FEMA approves projects through its supplemental Public Assistance grant, the funds are made available to the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness, who disburses them to the applicant for eligible work completed.
The Public Assistance program works with state and local officials to fund recovery measures and the rebuilding of government and certain private nonprofit organizations’ buildings, as well as roads, bridges and water and sewer plants. In order for the process to be successful, federal, state and local partners coordinate to draw up project plans, fund these projects and oversee their completion.
FEMA’s mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.
