NEWS

Crews have spent the past several days setting up a one-mile-long portable barrier wall along the Kings River. Fire crews have spent several days preparing areas prone to flooding in the South Valley. Robert Arroyo has lived near the Kings River in Tulare County for over 20 years and vividly remembers when a levee breach in 2017 resulted in terrible flooding. "This looked like a lake," Arroyo recalled of the area surrounding his home. He says his home was okay but some of his neighbors' houses were damaged by floodwaters. "It's hard not to feel bad for them when their property is being damaged like it was, so I am sure they are glad that things are being done," said Arroyo. This time around, the Tulare County Fire Department and Cal Fire took several days to set up a one-mile long portable barrier called a muscle wall along the river. "What they do is, the water goes inside of them. They are approximately 6 feet long, and they interlock with each other. So, they connect almost like Legos. Once the guys get them in place, they run them along and use the (tarp) to reinforce the muscle wall. They are designed, once they are interlocked and filled water, to keep the water on the water side," said Tulare County Fire Battalion Chief Bryan Duffy. Arroyo says knowing the muscle wall is there is a relief. Rick Carhart with Cal Fire says the hard work to protect communities is happening all over the county and will continue in the weeks to come. "This is a situation that is going to be affecting Tulare County for months. So, how long we will be here? I cannot say, but I can tell you that resources will be working to keep residents safe for months and months from now," said Carhart. The muscle wall is staying until summer since the snow melt could last until then. Read the articles by Elisa Navarro here.

Gov. John Bel Edwards meets with Gov.-elect Jeff Landry; Edwards chief of staff Mark Cooper; and the incoming governor's chief of staff, Kyle Ruckert, right, at the Governor's Mansion in November 2023. Photo by Tyler Walker. Mark Cooper is a Republican who served as chief of staff during seven of the eight years that John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, served as governor. Before that, Cooper headed homeland security and emergency management for almost four years for then-Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican. Now he is applying his bipartisan disaster response work in Louisiana outside of the state. In mid-November, Cooper was in Denver at the National Governors Association meeting to help prepare new governors to handle a crisis on day one if it occurred. In mid-December, Cooper will provide training for chiefs of staff for new governors on the same topic JFK School of Government at Harvard University. He'll also be conducting table top exercises for new governors and their cabinets for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Naval Post Graduate Program in Monterey, Ca. Cooper, 60, helped guide Edwards and Jindal through hurricanes and other natural disasters. He also has plenty of experience serving as the senior director of global emergency management for six years for Walmart Stores, including Sam's Club. Before that, he spent 20 years working for the County of Los Angeles, including a stint as deputy fire chief, where he helped handle the response to the civil unrest following the beating of Rodney King in 1992 and after the Northridge Earthquake in 1994. Read the article by Tyler Bridges here.