LIVINGSTON — Livingston Parish will soon have nine new weather stations to monitor key weather data used in emergency planning. The parish was recently awarded nearly half a million dollars through FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program to install advanced weather stations across the area.
Livingston Parish President Randy Delatte recently announced the Early Warning System Project on social media, outlining what the new system will offer. UWK spoke to Chris Anderson, director of the parish’s office of homeland security and emergency preparedness, to learn more about the project.
The parish received $476,423 in federal funding for the Early Warning System, a parish-wide alert system that won’t rely on electricity or cell phone networks — which often fail during severe storms — to transmit data to the Emergency Operations Center, Anderson explained.
Instead, the stations will be equipped with lithium battery backups, solar panels, and radio transmitters.
“We have the receiver here at the Emergency Operations Center, which will give us the ability to get the data even if all else fails,” Anderson said.
Weather stations will be installed at nine locations throughout the parish, many of them at local schools:
- Live Oak High School
- Walker High School
- Juban Parc Junior High
- Frost Elementary
- Maurepas High School
- Albany High School
- Springfield High School
- LIGO Livingston
- Livingston Fire Station District 11
Anderson noted that placing the stations at schools has the added benefit of allowing them to monitor on-site weather conditions such as lightning or wind speeds which is useful for outdoor events like football games, and for making closure decisions during severe weather.
The stations will track real-time data including wind speed, rainfall, barometric pressure, and temperature at different locations throughout the parish. This information will help emergency personnel make better decisions such as where sandbags are needed or when it’s unsafe to continue field operations due to high winds. Anderson said having accurate, real-time alerts from parish-based stations means better preparedness for officials and more reliable planning for residents.
Like most weather stations, each of these will feature a panel displaying live data. However, the parish partnered with engineers to custom-design the system, particularly the components involving the lithium battery, solar panel, and radio transmitter.
“It’s normally going to be on power and on Wi-Fi at the schools, but when that power fails, it has a backup to get to us so that we can still receive that crucial data,” he explained.
Although hurricane season is currently underway, the new stations will not be operational just yet. Anderson said some could be installed before the end of the season.
Bidding for the project will open soon and remain open for a minimum of 30 days.
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