BATON ROUGE - Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome sent a letter to the White House Tuesday asking for help from the federal government in addressing the coronavirus outbreak.

According to a statement from the mayor's office, Broome is asking President Trump to invoke the Defense Protection Act, which would increase the domestic production of medical supplies and equipment. The mayor also requests the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development allocate additional Emergency Solutions Grant funding to state and local governments.

“Local government budgets were not designed for a pandemic like this. We need the full weight of every federal department to support us through this crisis,” Mayor-President Broome said in the letter to President Trump. “In Louisiana, our State is accustomed to responding to disasters of multiple types and magnitudes; however, this global pandemic has overwhelmed even the most meticulous and proactive planning we have implemented.”

You can read the full letter to the president here.