BATON ROUGE — Mayor-President Sid Edwards said Friday that East Baton Rouge Parish's emergency operations center has ceased operations after five days of continuous monitoring of conditions during and following the freezing temperatures and record snowfall earlier in the week. 

Edwards thanked the community and officials in their help keeping people off the roads, noting it was his "first rodeo" during an emergency situation as mayor-president.

"Folks were outstanding," he said. "There were a lot of questions about a curfew or not. We didn't have to do a curfew. The good ole people in Baton Rouge knew what to do and how to act and they came through like shining stars." 

Members of the Mayor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, as well as local police, EMS and fire authorities, said that the city made it out the other end of the winter storm mostly unphased mostly thanks to proactive measures taken in the days leading up to the sub-freezing temperatures arriving on Tuesday.

Baton Rouge Police Chief T.J. Morse said that his officers closed 70 streets during the freeze, as well as bringing dozens of homeless people to shelters. Now, Morse says things are "back to business as normal in the city of Baton Rouge."

Fire Chief Michael Kimble said that there were seven fires during the freeze, but "no fire was in relation to the misuse of heaters."

Edwards said that 33,600 pounds of salt and 84 yards of sand were used to treat and protect priority routes. As a result, Transportation and Drainage Director Fred Raiford said that the only road that remains closed at the time of the news conference was the Central Thruway, which has since reopened.

During the freezing temperatures, the city-parish set up multiple warming shelters to get people out of the record-low temperatures, including a 7-degree Fahrenheit morning that was the coldest the city had seen since 1899. All of the people the shelters serviced have been returned home or taken to other more permanent shelters, Assistant Chief Administrative Officer Jeff LeDuff said.

LeDuff and Edwards also noted that District 10 Councilwoman Carolyn Coleman helped two of the homeless people who took shelter in the city's warming centers get job interviews.