NEW ORLEANS – Mayor Mitch Landrieu joined New Orleans Coroner Dr. Jeffrey Rouse, EMS Director Dr. Jeff Elder, Councilmembers, FEMA, and City and State officials yesterday to celebrate the opening of the new, state-of-the-art New Orleans Coroner’s Office and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Headquarters in the B.W. Cooper neighborhood.
“Today, we celebrate another sign of renewal and reinvestment in our city as the new Coroner’s Office and EMS Headquarters joint complex opens in the B.W. Cooper neighborhood,” Mayor Mitch Landrieu said Wednesday. “These two agencies provide critical services that are absolutely essential to the health and wellbeing of every person in New Orleans. These medical professionals often work under extreme pressure and on highly sensitive matters and should be commended for their dedication and expertise. Hurricane Katrina left both the Coroner’s Office and EMS’s facilities devastated, forcing them to operate in temporary facilities. Now, with these new, storm-resilient facilities, our Coroner and first responders will be able to continue to provide quality services in state-of-the-art facilities.”
New Orleans Coroner Dr. Jeffrey Rouse said, “The opening of our new facility heralds the most significant development in the modern history of the Orleans Parish Coroner’s Office. This state-of-the-art facility is a fitting new environment for our hardworking staff who have performed their unique and difficult mission under arduous conditions. Families come to us at the worst time in their lives, and this new space now physically reflects the professionalism with which we serve them. As I continue to modernize this institution, I’d like to thank all who were involved in creating our new home where I can carry this mission forward.”
Dr. Jeff Elder, M.D., Director of New Orleans EMS, said, “The opening of EMS Headquarters allows us to bring together EMS operations, administration and education under one roof. From this facility, EMS will be able to respond across the city to our patients’ medical emergencies, oversee daily administrative duties and train our paramedics and EMT’s on the latest in prehospital emergency medical care. We are looking forward to functioning as a unified service and continuing to meet the emergent medical needs of the citizens and visitors of New Orleans.”
City Council President Jason Rogers Williams said, “I am happy to see this important project come to fruition. New Orleans, and our Coroner Jeffrey Rouse, are finally getting the facility they deserve. Both the Coroner and EMS provide services to our citizens in their worst moments. Both of these offices have been providing professional and high level services in spite of substandard office conditions. I am pleased that with the help of the federal government and tax-paying citizens, we are building state of the art facilities to help these two offices improve upon their terrific work.”
District A Councilmember Susan G. Guidry said, "Despite the fact that various components of the EMS division are presently scattered at multiple temporary facilities around our city, this organization has miraculously managed to provide an exemplary level of service for our city and its visitors. As a result, the EMS division has gained national attention and saved countless lives. In addition, our Coroner's Office now has a state of the art facility to conduct crucial testing and store and provide evidence in important criminal court cases. Plus, families can now view the bodies of their loved ones in a more suitable environment. This new facility represents another turning point in the recovery of our great city.”
District C Councilmember Nadine M. Ramsey said, “Recognizing the Orleans Parish Coroner’s Office’s a vital role in our community’s health, over the past few years, the City Council has committed to increasing the Coroner’s budget. The Coroner’s Office assists our most vulnerable, whether it is those suffering from mental illness, crime victims, or those in grief due to the loss of a loved one. Combined with our City’s Emergency Medical Services, this new facility will allow our medical personnel to operate more efficiently with state-of-the-art services and amenities.”
NEW CORONER’S OFFICE
The new Coroner’s Office is located at 3001 Earhart Blvd. in the B.W. Cooper neighborhood. It is a three-story, 23,300-square-foot facility. It contains a refrigerated storage area for 112 bodies and back-up connections for additional refrigerated trailers if necessary. It also includes a full-featured autopsy suite with four autopsy tables and a decomposed body autopsy room – for a total of five autopsy stations. In addition, it has four full laboratory suites used to aid in determining the cause of death. The Toxicology Laboratory has capabilities to operate five gas chromatograph mass spectrometers. This laboratory analyzes chemicals present in blood and fluid samples. The Histology Laboratory is equipped to study microscopic tissue samples and cell structures. The Vitreous Fluid Laboratory is readied to analyze vitreous fluid. The Accessioning Laboratory is set up to classify and schedule samples for testing in all of the laboratories. Wet tissue storage allows small tissue samples to be stored as evidence.
The new Coroner’s Office features administrative areas for staff offices; high-density filing system for storage of medical and death records; and a large conference room/ library for staff meetings, depositions and technical literature. There is also office space for death investigators and pathologists, with a collaboration area for internal consultations. In the Family Area, family members can meet privately with staff to identify loved ones and receive property. In the Mental Health Suite, staff conduct interviews to determine if someone should be involuntarily committed for treatment. Individuals may be involuntarily committed if they are deemed to be gravely disabled or a danger to themselves or others.
The new Coroner’s Office also features a full back-up generator for round-the-clock operation in the event of a power outage and additional capabilities for the Coroner’s Office staff to remain on duty during a citywide evacuation.
Before Hurricane Katrina, the Coroner’s Office was located in the basement and first floor of the Orleans Parish Criminal District Courthouse at Tulane and Broad Streets Flooding in the weeks following Katrina forced the Coroner’s Office into a temporary facility on Martin Luther King Boulevard. The temporary facility had insufficient storage for remains in three refrigerated tractor trailers, limited space to perform autopsies, no laboratory space and staff offices in a trailer behind the facility.
The new facility meets accreditation standards by the National Association of Medical Examiners. The site is on high ground and did not flood during Hurricane Katrina. It has public parking available for visitors, as well as secure parking for staff vehicles and Coroner’s body transport vans. It has a private area for body loading and unloading that is screened from view.
NEW EMS HEADQUARTERS
The new New Orleans Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Headquarters facility is located at 2929 Earhart Blvd. in the B.W. Cooper neighborhood. The 14,000-square-foot, two-story facility contains all day-to-day operations for New Orleans EMS. The logistics hub for the department is located on the West Bank. The new facility houses an Emergency Operation Center to coordinate deployment of emergency vehicles. The Operation Department will store supplies needed to fully stock emergency vehicles. Enough supplies for weekly operations can now be stored in a controlled environment. It has 34 ambulance docks for replenishing ambulance supplies at shift changes, 23 parking spaces for EMS Sprint Vehicle SUVs, 10 spaces for EMS specialty vehicles such as Rescue Trucks and the Mobile Surge Unit, and secure parking for staff vehicles. It also has an Emergency Vehicle wash rack.
All administrative offices are under one roof in the new facility and include staff areas with locker rooms, on-call rooms and report-writing areas; an open office suite for shift supervisors to coordinate shift activities; and multi-purpose rooms to provide staff training and may house crew members temporarily in case of a city evacuation. The new EMS Headquarters features a full back-up generator for round-the-clock operation in the event of a power outage and additional capabilities for EMS staff to remain on duty during a citywide evacuation.
Prior to Hurricane Katrina, the City was renting space for EMS Headquarters from the National Guard on Moss Street near Bayou St. John. After being flooded for weeks following Hurricane Katrina, EMS scattered to various temporary sites around the city. Ambulance docking was under the Tchoupitoulas Street up-ramp to the Crescent City Connection with some administrative space housed in City Hall and other staff located in trailers on Jefferson Davis Parkway on the West Bank in old brake tag facilities.
New Orleans EMS is the sole 9-1-1 EMS provider for the City of New Orleans.
CONSTRUCTION AND FUNDING
The new Coroner’s Office and EMS Headquarters was designed by George Hero AIA, Architect LLC and built by Construction Masters. Local DBE firms worked on the new facilities including: McCorkle & Sons Tile, V. Keeler and Associates, Inc., UATC & Associates, Inc., Gulley’s Welding/Steel Erectors, and WR Contractors.
Funding for the $14.8 million New Orleans Coroner’s Office and EMS Headquarters joint facility comes from FEMA, Law Enforcement District Bond funds and Disaster Community Development Block Grant funds.
Cedric Grant, Executive Director of Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans, said, “The opening of the new, state-of-the-art New Orleans Coroner’s Office and EMS Headquarters has been a long time coming and the result is well worth the wait. Now, all our residents and visitors can have the peace of mind that our City’s highly trained medical personnel are working out of a fully storm-resilient facility that meets their needs. This is another major step forward in New Orleans’ recovery.”
Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin N. Gusman said, “The mission of the Orleans Parish Law Enforcement District is to support public safety. The Law Enforcement District is proud to support this new complex, which will improve public safety in Orleans Parish and increase the effectiveness of both the Coroner’s Office and EMS.”
Mike Womack, Director of the FEMA Louisiana Recovery Office, said, “The opening of the new Coroner's Office and Emergency Medical Services Complex represents an important and symbolic recovery milestone for the City of New Orleans. This new complex will provide a significantly improved environment from which the Coroner and EMS staff can conduct their important work. FEMA is proud to partner with the City and State in aiding local recovery endeavors through the coordination of federal taxpayers’ dollars.”
Pat Forbes, Executive Director of the Office of Community Development-Disaster Recovery Unit said, “This critical project, like many construction projects in an urban environment, could not have been built without first clearing the site environmentally. The City of New Orleans showed great foresight in setting aside Community Development Block Grant disaster recovery funds it received from the state for environmental testing and remediation, which they used to make this project come to fruition.”
