St. John the Baptist Parish is lifting the curfew Monday night, the first time the parish won’t be under a nighttime curfew since Ida made landfall 43 days ago. Parish President Jacelyn Hotard told WWL's Dave Cohen the decision came after a discussion with law enforcement officials last week.
“Just feeling comfortable with the amount of electricity that has been restored, the amount of debris that has been collected, trying to get commerce back flowing and balancing all of those things,” said Hotard who added 600,000 tons of debris has been removed from the parish.
Hotard said life isn’t back to normal yet and many residents have not returned, but this is a big step towards some kind of normalcy.
“We will continue to increase patrolling in neighborhoods while residents aren’t there to live in their homes to protect people’s property as best as possible,” said Hotard.
The first schools in St. John won’t be open until next week after a setback this week. Inspectors told local leaders they needed additional time to inspect facilities that took heavy damage from Ida.
