Port Fourchon Dedicates, Opens New Fourchon EOC Building
Pictured: Family of Johnny Melancon, Sr. at the July 31st Dedication Event
(GALLIANO, LA) – At a dedication and open house event today, the Greater Lafourche Port Commission officially named its newest port facility the Johnny Melancon, Sr. Fourchon EOC in memory of GLPC board member John “Johnny” Melancon, Sr., who passed away in 2010. Current board treasurer John Melancon, Jr., son of the beloved Johnny, Sr., accepted a framed copy of the dedication resolution and building photo on behalf of the Melancon family.
“My dad was a vocal and active member of the Port Commission board for fifteen years,” said John Melancon, Jr. “He saw Port Fourchon’s exponential growth unfold, and he had a hand in steering the port’s finances and personnel to meet the demands of the future. I think he’d be happy to see what we’ve done here at the new Fourchon EOC facility. It’s all about thinking proactively.”
Located next to GLPC’s Fourchon Operations Center, the Fourchon EOC is meant to serve as the epicenter of incident response during emergencies impacting the Port Fourchon area or oil & gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico.
“As our Fourchon Ops Center was the main base for parish response in 2010, the Port Commission realized that there was a need for a facility where all response agencies, emergency services, industry leaders and incident managers could work collaboratively to manage any type of incident or disaster, and it needed to be separate from our daily operations base. Using our experience as a port that successfully morphed into a model in emergency response, we secured federal port security grant funds through the Department of Homeland Security and started planning the Fourchon EOC,” said GLPC Executive Director Chett Chiasson.
The $3.4 million Fourchon EOC was built with nearly $1.4 million in federal port security grant funds in along with $2 million from GLPC. The new facility includes some of the most technologically-advanced real-time data sharing and communications capabilities available, providing government and industry with the most robust emergency operations center in the nation to service the oil and gas industry and making Port Fourchon an important proving ground for innovative approaches to port security.
“It seems very fitting to put Johnny’s name on a building that was created to make the port and its users more prepared and resilient,” said GLPC’s Board President Perry Gisclair. “He is a man well deserving of this honor and we are fortunate to have him forever in our minds and his name forever in our eyes when we drive up to this building.”
The new Fourchon EOC facility is located at 180B A.O. Rappelet Road in Port Fourchon, LA. It will be available for government agencies, port tenant companies, and industry leaders to conduct full-scale emergency training exercises and/or incident management and response drills.
The Greater Lafourche Port Commission, a political subdivision of the state of Louisiana, facilitates the economic growth of the communities in which it operates by maximizing the flow of trade and commerce. We do this to grow our economy and preserve our environment and heritage. The Port Commission exercises jurisdiction over the Tenth Ward of Lafourche Parish, south of the Intracoastal Waterway, including Port Fourchon and South Lafourche Leonard Miller, Jr. Airport.