"A lot of the preparations that we (were) focusing on have to deal with flooding issues, simply because if we get as much rain as is being predicted, it could be problematic for those residents here in Brownsville and others in the south Texas area," said Jeff Johnston, the Emergency Management Coordinator for the city of Brownsville, proving he is a master of the understatement.By Juan Montoya
Do you get the impression that the City of Brownsville elected and appointed city officials were caught with their rubber duckies down by tropical storm Hermine?
Guess what? They were.
Even the usually affable Mayor Pat Ahumada admitted on the city's cable channel that the quickly developing storm took officials by surprise. What started as a 40 to 50 mile per hour storm churning unorganized in the Gulf suddenly headed straight for Brownsville and garnered wind gusts of some 70 miles per hour, only five miles short of a full-fledged hurricane.
In fact, the mayor had no time to order the usual 75 embroidered shirts like he ordered to welcome Hurricane Dolly.
And if the storm had struck in full force, it is doubtful that the city's crack (although not stylishly clad) disaster team would have been ready.
Jeff Johnston is the Emergency Management Coordinator for the city of Brownsville told the Eurasia News and Review before the storm hit that the preparations were underway to meet the threat. "A lot of the preparations that we (were) focusing on have to deal with flooding issues, simply because if we get as much rain as is being predicted, it could be problematic for those residents here in Brownsville and others in the south Texas area," said Johnston, proving he is a master of the understatement.
Johnston said emergency services officials on both sides of the border maintain contact whenever a major storm approaches and that they operate under a longstanding agreement to share resources and personnel.
"Brownsville and Matamoros had the first sister city agreement along the U.S.-Mexico border that relates to emergency crews moving back and forth across the border during large-scale emergencies or disasters," he said. "So we have close contact with civil protection in Mexico."
Either Johnson is a fanciful fibber, or perhaps he was being charitable and a good diplomat.
In fact, what happened was that the city has the emergency communications contract with Sprint, normally a crack outfit.
Unfortunately during the storm's advance upon the city "On the Border, By the Sea," Sprint took a dive and the system crashed. If Johnson wanted to get in touch with Matamoros and "share resources," he would have had to run to the Gateway Bridge and wave flag signals to communicate and toss the "resources" across the span.
And the dynamic disaster response teams with the Brownsville Public Utilities Board didn't fare much better. A woman who lives near the intersection of Price Road and Old Port Isabel road (not more than a mile from the PUB) could not reach the utility to tell them her lights had gone out at about 11 p.m. Sunday.
A voice at the other end told her to try back again because the volume of callers reporting blackouts was overwhelming the system.
Instead, she and her family had to endure a long, hot (and windy) night in the dark. But that wasn't all. PUB didn't get to her neighborhood off Las Palmas until about 6 p.m. on Monday.
After Dolly, many city officials including Ahumada and Johnson said the storm had provided the city staff and officials with a "dry run."
It took a mere tropical storm named Hermine and her puny winds to prove they were all wet.
8 comments:
So, what you are saying we all fail the Hermine Tropical Storm test.
PAT AND HIS REGIME WERE TOO BUSY WITH THE STUPID PLASTIC BAG ORDINANCE AND HOW TO STICKED IT TO THE PEOPLE WITH MORE TAXES!!!!!
The national weather alert system was also down in our area. Who the hell is watching the front door?
Anyone who watched the last commission meeting on TV surely understand why the city was caught unprepared for the storm....because preparation requires good teamwork and cooperation and there is NONE of that in our city. As we observed in the last meeting the commissioners can't seem to agree on anything and get very defensive and aggressive when citizens attempt to provide inputs. Charlie Atkinson was even talking to the cameras at times and his pretty pink face showed he was steamed. Longoria was equally beligerent and that made his pointed head more pronounced. Trioani seems to smile and snicker at the stupid outbursts of his fellow commissioners. Atkinson and Longoria seemed incensed that things they voted for would come under question....what arrogant assholes they are. The city is swirling down the preverbial toilet under its current leadership....no wonder Hermine went unnoticed...the leaders were engaged in a "circle jerk".
In the absence of city leadership, the citizens of Brownsville did very well during TS Hermine. We have to wonder why so many residents lost power....something that was more widespread than during previous storms. Where was PUB????
I applaud the citizens who rapidly cleaned up the debris after Hermine. On the otherhand, there remain plenty of assholes who haven't struck a lick yet at cleaning up around their homes or businesses. And for all those with palm trees whose limbs fell in the street and in their neighbors' yards....your responsibility is to clean up what your trees caused. Most citizens will do what is right, but we have too many who want someone else to assume the responsibility of their mess. Face it; we have an awful city government and we must take public action to clean up, protect ourselves and our families.
They are all a Bunch of NACOTES !!!
CAN'T WAIT FOR MAY 2011 AND VOTE THEM OUT!!!!!!!
Yeah! But just remember to go vote!
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