Episode 5: The Command Center: Protecting Our Neighbors, Preparing Our City

When crisis strikes, what actually happens behind the closed doors of the Emergency Operations Center?

In this episode of The Hangout Podcast, we are pulling back the curtain on local emergency management and public safety. We are joined by two of the individuals responsible for keeping our community safe: Emergency Management Coordinator Jamie Galloway and Police Chief Greg Grigg.

Whether you are tuning into the audio or watching us on YouTube, this episode is your ultimate guide to how Deer Park prepares for the unexpected—and how you can protect your household.

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Thank you from the Visit Deer Park Division of the City of Deer Park

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:10

Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Hangout Podcast. I'm Elliot.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

And I'm Caitlin.

SPEAKER_03 0:14

And today we have a couple of guests that I know you viewers out there have been really anticipating. So why don't you guys tell us who you are and what you do?

SPEAKER_05 0:22

I'm Jamie Galloway. I'm the emergency service director for the city of Deer Park.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

I'm Greg Gregg, police chief for the city of Deer Park.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

So we wanted to have both of y'all come on the podcast just to talk about general public safety, talk about the e-scooters, e-bike little things that we're dealing with right now, the new ordinance and everything like that. And then we also wanted to talk about hurricane safety and kind of what the city does in the event of an emergency, whether that's a natural disaster or or an industry-related incident. So one of the first things that we wanted to really touch on is how the EOC works and who does what in the event of an incident.

SPEAKER_05 1:06

Okay. Usually we'll activate the EOC if it's a major incident. When something occurs, there's usually a a thread, a text thread or call thread with myself, chief, city manager, assistance manager, and our PIO. And we'll start getting information and analyzing it and see if we need to activate the EOC. If the need's there, we activate the EOC with our that group, and then we'll start bringing other departments as needed.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

So how does the the city work with like our neighboring cities and things like that in the middle of an incident?

SPEAKER_05 1:43

Well, certainly it's it's it works well. I mean, the tornado, for example, we would coordinate a lot of things with Pasadena and Baytown, especially on the public information side and and working resources when we're getting rid of some disaster recovery items. Similar incident with the pipeline fire. We were since it was on the city border, we were working a lot with Laporte for public information, the pipeline company, and PD was certainly working with Laporte, PD, and county agencies to help coordinate the traffic issue.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

Well, I think the other thing that the the tornado was different than a lot of the widespread things that we have. So that as a city, we saw number of cities all around us sent cleanup crews. They could do that because their city wasn't affected. So often down here, if you have a hurricane, it's a large-scale event, everybody's dealing with their own thing. You still have to coordinate work with one another, especially on the on the borders. But uh that was a very different type of situation because everybody could come help us, which obviously we would have done for them, but that was very nice that we had people from Friendswood and Webster and Baytown and trucks everywhere and got cleaned up right now.

SPEAKER_05 2:58

I think we ended up having eight cities send us crews to help pick up debris from the tornado.

unknown 3:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:05

The recovery time on that was awesome.

SPEAKER_05 3:07

I mean, it was actually pretty quick.

SPEAKER_03 3:08

Yeah. Very quick.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

I remember we had like 80% completion of the debris pickup in like a couple of weeks, right?

SPEAKER_05 3:17

Yeah, sure. And and with with cut other cities coming to help, you know, it it saved us a lot of money. We didn't have to activate our debris contractor until we got ready to take it from a temporary site to final disposal.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Yeah. That's awesome. I think that really kind of like shares kind of what Deer Park is about. I mean, I know we're all a little bit biased because we all work here and we think that, you know, it's an awesome city, but I think that really shows an impact on like our services for the community and as a whole.

SPEAKER_02 3:51

And I think our citizens are very good about you'll see them out in the streets as soon as it's over. So it's kind of a culture. It's not just the city workers, it's also the citizens.

SPEAKER_04 4:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Who able-bodied people, you'll see them out there with chainsaws and they're getting rid of it right off the bat. And so obviously that that speeds up the cleanup time and uh the restoration of our city back to normal.

SPEAKER_05 4:17

And certainly with that, not only did the city showed up, but Southern Baptist men showed up to the EOC the next day, as well as Texas Forest Service. And Texas Forest Service is a chainsaw crew, which were able to go out to the park parks and the school district property to cut up limbs and those things, get them out to the roadway. And then Southern Baptist men were able to go into have a waiver sign and go into people's backyards and cut up any limbs or trees back there and to get them to the curve, which expedited the process.

SPEAKER_04 4:45

Yeah.

unknown 4:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:46

And I I know during that time we did have a lot of notifications going out. You know, hey, I I understand you guys want to help your neighbors out, but we got to be cautious at the same time. You know, we don't know if there's down power power lines or any kind of dangers like that as far as like a disaster. Talk a little bit about a shelter in place of what exactly that means.

SPEAKER_05 5:07

Shelter in place, you know, it but we we'll issue it if if we're don't have enough information to to decide if it's safe to be outdoors. I mean, most of that's going to occur with a possible chemical release or an industry issue and depends on the wind as well. You know, just going inside and getting out of the out of the outside air to a place of a safe refuge.

SPEAKER_03 5:33

And Chief, logistically for PD, how would that guy how would that work for you guys and and your crew? I mean, obviously for the citizens, like we have a a shelter in place. What kind of precautions do you guys have for PD if there was a shelter in place?

SPEAKER_02 5:49

Depends on the incident, as Jamie said, it the wind direction and what may possibly be escaping or have escaped, or we don't know, but we know something's escaping. Right. Our biggest we have two big concerns. One is if it's crossing Highway 225, you have a tremendous number of vehicles up there almost any time of the day. Less at night, but still a lot of a lot of cars going through there. So we have to try and determine quickly if this is impacting Highway 225 first, because if that's the case, we've got to close that road down, and that's about an hour and 15-minute process to get everybody diverted and and out of harm's way. While we're doing that, usually Jamie's in in contact with the with whatever plants involved, other OEMs, and they're trying to figure out what what do we know. We're trying to get the the the uh company out to do the air monitoring and trying to figure and are we getting phone calls from people that their eyes are burning or whatever. If if that's the case, then we'll try and decide, okay, if we're gonna do a shelter in place, where do we think that might be? Is that Pasadena Boulevard? Is that 13th? Where is that? Because we the we want to try and impact the city as l as least as possible while maintaining safety. So we try and do that with some added-on distance and then call for that if we need it, and then once we verify that it that we don't need it, we'll lift that. But and then of course that goes through the PIO, it goes through dispatch when they do the the call notification to our citizens when they do the geographic boundaries of of the area that's going to be sheltered in place. So you you have to try and define and usually information is just not coming quick. And if you have some bad substance out there, you could have some bad results quickly. The officers themselves, of course, they know what the wind direction is. They've got masks and and things that will help against a lot of the chemicals, not all of them. If it got to the point, obviously, that they couldn't, we would have to shut it down on the margins and we're not going to go rushing in there and and and get caught up with everybody else because if we're not there, we can't help anybody. But thankfully we've not had one that bad.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

So I I kind of have a concept of of this question, but maybe for the general public, what types of data are y'all looking at during that type of an incident where where y'all are able to determine like where the shelter in place is going to be located? Is it air monitoring? Is it a GIS system where where you're looking at like a footprint or a plume model? Like what types of data?

SPEAKER_05 8:32

Some of the information is going to be based off the information we're getting from the facility, what chemicals involved. And then I'll be bringing up some information through the cameo program that's pushed out by EPA. And I'll bring up the chemical and I'll look and I'll start looking at the data on initial protective actions. And usually it's about a mile radius of the facility during the day and a mile and a half at night. So we'll start looking at that, getting our air monitoring contractor in play, and and as Chief said, monitoring phone calls, see where we're getting people who smell odors, and we can pin that on a map. And at the same time, I'm trying to run a plume model, but we're also working with the National Weather Service to get that information of what type of product it is, and they'll look at their weather patterns and then run us a plume model and shoot and email it to us so we keep an eye on what's going on. But when you go in and drop a pin, say like at 225 in front of PMEX shell, and you put a one mile radius out most of the population south of 225, you're looking at 5,700 residents within that one mile residence that we're going to have shelter in place. And that's just one mile. So, you know, you have to expand it out like we we did that one incident where Pasadena was doing some shelter in place as well, and that was pushed in a mile and a half or so, and that's a lot of folks that we need to reach out to and say, you know, take some type of protective action.

SPEAKER_04 10:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:01

One of the things that we've all been frustrated with, I think probably the public at times, certainly we have, y'all have trying to get information out is trying to it takes an hour, hour and a half to get our air monitoring folks out. Jamie's more familiar with what we're doing, but probably close to a year ago, we talked about it off and on, but a year ago or so the mayor said he's we're going to have our own air monitoring. So we'll still call people out, but we want some stationary as well as handheld devices capability here in-house. So we're getting readings when we're getting the calls. And that's all in place on the side.

SPEAKER_05 10:41

Yeah, we're at with it. We have that bid out, the project bid, and we applied for a port security grant, and we received some funds for reimbursement on the program. However, that's kind of pushed back a delay with DHS and FEMA being shut down right now to get some final processes approved. But the the plan is to have four live air monitoring systems across the city along that 225 corridor.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

Those are stationary.

SPEAKER_05 11:10

Stationary. And then we'll also have, I believe it was two or three handheld devices that'll read the same type of product that we can move around mobile and and also pick up live data.

SPEAKER_04 11:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 11:21

And then, of course, we'll be working the company that we're utilizing will be working with their PIO to push out public information once this is all up and going, and and we'll be able to see the live data as it's coming in on the readings.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

That's gonna be very helpful with everything that we do. Oh, yeah. And for those that don't know, I am the PIO and Elliot assist, and Angela Smith is our our deputy PIO. So we're all like a shared team as far as pushing out information. And then Kelly Bass and Dispatch and all of the dispatchers, they help us as well in in that information push as well as other people too. So we have a whole team of of like what goes out to the public and things like that that that one of us is always on call at some point for that that information push. So let's talk a little bit about like what people should keep in like a mer in an emergency preparedness kit, maybe for like a hurricane.

SPEAKER_05 12:25

Well, certainly some type of food and water. I mean, even in my to-go bag, I carry freeze-dried camping meals like Mountain House or something like that. And then I keep that handy if I need to. But you know, just something that that can last at least three days on major hurricanes is probably longer than that, five days. An example, Hurricane Barrel. I don't think any of us expected to lose power for a week. Yeah. And we did. So hopefully some of the things that Center Point's been doing with improving the grid's gonna help. But uh, you know, just be prepared. You know, food, water, uh, medications is another one. Important documentation, your insurance and those type of things, having that information available. And don't forget your pets.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Yeah. What is it? People, plants, pets?

SPEAKER_03 13:15

The four P's.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

The four P's, pipes, pipes, pipes, just to four. I sometimes had I forget until we issue the social media project. Right.

SPEAKER_03 13:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

I'm like, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:26

It's a quick refresher.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

So another thing that I kind of want to like briefly touch on is how can we combat fighting infinformation on social media? Because I know a lot of people are out there being watchdogs, and we're so grateful for people who are actually saying something whenever they see something, but at the same time, we want to rein some of those rumors in because everybody can type whatever they want to on the internet these days. And I know we did some social media rumor control webinars with the city staff, and I think Lieutenant Brown hosted that for us for the communications committee. And he gave some really good tips and tricks. But I want to know from y'all's perspective what y'all think would be the best action for that.

SPEAKER_05 14:19

Trusted use trusted sources. I mean, just Joe Bob's Facebook page, he states that I I I saw this and this, that, and the other is not necessarily true. You know, the city website, the city social media, that's where we're pushing out the information as we get it. And even even large media can get it wrong, as we found out during the the the pipeline incident and the tornado. They were nationally reporting things that weren't true.

SPEAKER_04 14:48

Right.

SPEAKER_05 14:49

So it's just use the trust local trusted source.

SPEAKER_04 14:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

Yeah, and I think the you know, part of the like the pipeline. We had information on the pipeline about the individual that that ran into the pipe way before we could put it out, but while we're investigating it, can't put it out.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

So sometimes there's information that we have that we're running down, like that incident we were trying to find out right off the bat is this an act of terrorism? Because we have pipes like this all over the place. Right. And fairly soon we knew that it was an intentional act. But you know, once again, that's not something that we put out. We're gonna have to verify that because the family is gonna hear that and everything else. So you have to be But what one of the things that you find too is that is is the uh bad information, going back to what you were talking about earlier, is it get gaining traction? You got all kinds of people say stupid stuff and people just blow them off ignore them, and they seem to be getting better about that, I think, on the internet.

SPEAKER_04 15:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

But certainly a few years ago, I can't remember exactly which incident it was, we had somebody that started reporting that there were people breaking into houses. I think it was during Harvey, and they were robbing people and taking, you know, taking holding them up at gunpoint, and it was going like wildfire. And so we had to run it down. We we got subpoenas for the company, found out who it was, went to the house. It was two teenagers. Thought it was funny. And so, bottom line is we were able to shut them down, but mainly tell everybody that we had traced down the source. This is we couldn't tell them who it was, but we told them it was two kids, and that basically none of it was true. And that finally quelled it. But we spent several hours right on that that day trying to get that stupid rumor tampered down, and not a single bit of it was true.

SPEAKER_03 16:44

No, I was just gonna say in a situation like that, it's really unfortunate because you're dealing with a a natural disaster, and then you have to try to mitigate something like that when those resources could be put, you know, obviously somewhere better. So, yeah, thank you guys for shutting that kind of stuff down. I mean, it it really goes back to the the PD and and how we're so lucky to have something like right right away. You know, you hear something and they go and report it, they they get it reported, they take it into account like, hey, this could be really detrimental to the information that we're trying to get out and also make our jobs a little bit easier as well. So you know, thank you guys for that.

SPEAKER_05 17:23

Yeah, and and and with that, you know, we talk about if we're especially we're doing multi-jurisdictional responses, having that coordinated communication, basic coordination and pushing out the same message is is a good thing. Yeah. And because I mean, if you think back on the pipeline fire and the tornado, we had that going and with the coordinated information going out and everybody's operating from the same shit of music, we didn't have a lot of those issues.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:51

Well, and I think it goes back to your one of your first questions about how the EOC operates. I mean, one of the reasons we come together in the EOC is so that when we're trying to gather information and push it out, everybody that's getting main lines of information from different sources from the industry and from surrounding OEMs, from police departments, ours, and others around. And you guys, whatever y'all are hearing, especially through social media and others that can be verified. When we put that message together to go out, we try and make sure it's the latest information that everybody in that room has, and we try and have everybody there that's being impacted and affected so that the message is as true as we can verify that it is right now, based on what we have. Yeah. And I think that's one of the things people expect because of social media. They expect information at the speed of light. That's not the way information flows.

unknown 18:44

Right.

SPEAKER_04 18:45

Right.

SPEAKER_02 18:45

You know, especially coming out of one of these, there's a lot of confusion, a lot of unknowns, a lot of different conflicting information coming out. And it takes some time to sort through all of that. And people are, well, what's going on? What's going on? What's going on? Well, some if you put out there that this is going on and 15 minutes later, after verifying or looking at that didn't go on, you've lost credibility. So you have to balance that speed with accuracy. And sometimes that causes our messaging to go out slower than people would like. But they need to understand the dynamics of why. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

And on top of that, the media phone calls that uh that I'm receiving and the mayor's receiving, and y'all are receiving, and everybody's receiving, I know day one of the pipeline, I received 272 phone calls on day one of the pipeline fire. And so while I'm trying to draft messages, you know, I'm trying to type all of the information that we're getting coming into the EOC and then the media, because then if they don't get a hold of me, then they call dispatch or they call the mayor or they call you or they call you or you or Angela. And and so all of this information flowing into the EOC all at once, and then people asking nonstop questions and monitoring social media and stuff like that. I feel like we do a really good job in as a whole in communicating as much information as possible to the community in a timely manner when we get accurate information. And I think that's that's another testament to our team as a whole. Because I know we've seen in in past incidents where other cities have sheltered in place and and stuff like that, and we didn't have all of the information yet. But prioritizing like the safety of our community has always been our our first call for everything that we do, I think.

SPEAKER_03 20:46

And I think going back on what you said too, it it can cause a lot of like mass hysteria that doesn't need to be there. You know, if you're putting out information right away and it's false information, just you know, just to get something out, that can again again, it can be more detrimental than you know doing any good.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

So that affects your credibility. Right. Right. And then people are going next that next thing you're putting out, well, is this true or is it gonna be found not to be true? Right. Right. So that affects that affects timing. Yeah, which which creates sometimes frustration because people think you should be able to tell them right now what's going on. Right. And it's just not the way it works. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Yeah. So let's talk about something fun. And I know Chief is gonna have some really great things to say about this topic. Let's talk about e-bikes.

SPEAKER_03 21:36

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

And them rascals out there on them motorized scooters.

SPEAKER_02 21:45

Well, you know, the uh the rise, I mean, it seemed like last maybe November started seeing more and more, noticeably, scooters, e-bikes, and uh a lot of the uh ones right. Riding them two people on a bike that had one seat. I mean, it was just riding in the street, going down sidewalks at twenty miles an hour. And then as as December came in, and especially once Christmas went past, it was like everybody got one. And people not wearing helmets, just we we started having a lot of near misses, a lot of minor uh accidents. We I think there was paraland and within the last week or so had a fatality. But it wasn't just kids. We we've we've had two of our two of our wrecks at least involved adults that were so all of a sudden these things are everywhere. So we we did draft an ordinance to address the issue. Pretty much the ordinance we had before this just said basically you can't ride them. Uh because you d you can't ride a bicycle on a sidewalk. And you're 10 years old, we don't want you in the street driving down the street at 20 miles an hour. So a lot of them out there, do we do we really want them in the street? The answer was no, we do not want a 10 or 12 year old in the street. So that puts them up on the sidewalk, and so if you're gonna put them on the sidewalk, now you got pedestrians, so who yields to who? And we made the e-bikes yield to the pedestrians. And we also made the e-bikes yield to any cars coming in out of driveways or intersections. It's up to the e-bike to because you can't see them.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

Right.

SPEAKER_02 23:28

You're you're looking to get cars coming at you, you're wanting to make a left turn, and you're trying to, and there's an e-bike coming 20, 25 miles an hour down the sidewalk. Yeah, you're not gonna see them.

SPEAKER_04 23:38

Right.

SPEAKER_02 23:38

But the e-bike person, we put the responsibility on them. You can see that a car is stopped about to turn. You need to take those precautions. We're putting helmets on them for under 16. They can ride in the street if it's a the speed limit doesn't exceed, I think it's 30 miles an hour, so that basically they can ride in residential neighborhoods on the street, hopefully with parental supervision. You don't see a lot of that. And certainly not on what San Augustine and X Street, where I've seen them. Just a lot of crazy driving and zipping it across streets and and so it's a big issue. I I I fear that we are gonna see more serious injuries. And that's unfortunate, but it's it's kind of the latest craze, and parents need to supervise their children and teach them how to ride these things, instruct them in the in the rules of the game, and not just turn them loose. Yeah, and a lot of them have been turned loose.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

Yeah. I know I've Nikki and I were getting after a couple kids at the the DAC for just driving crazy. And I mean, they they weren't paying attention to cars coming out of the parking lot. And and you know, the cars, you know, you get a grandma or grandpa or mom and pop out there, and they're just trying to get home, and they have this e-bike come zipping out of that parking lot, not a care in the world, they're just having fun. Something's gonna happen, and it and it's gonna be really unfortunate. And the last thing I want to happen is that for for it to be me backing up out of my parking spot and hitting a kid, that would tear me up inside. And but they I mean they don't pay attention and they're in the the walking lanes and stuff like that. And so I understand why y'all put that ordinance in place. I do feel bad that we we raffled off an e-bike at the last tree lighting because we contributed to the problem.

SPEAKER_03 25:36

But maybe not necessarily.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

Well, they weren't really the issue that they became shortly after that.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:46

And the the issue for for viewers out there, it's not the issue is not the e-bikes, it's you know, the lack of information that the people that ride them have. And like Chief said, you know, we do have an ordinance. So if you want to check that out, where can people find this ordinance to get more information about it?

SPEAKER_02 26:04

City website, just look the ordinances are there. You can go to the ordinances, it's got search capacity, just put in e-bike, yeah. It'll pull it should pull it up.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

Awesome. I know the PD did like infographic too for like what can and can't happen. And so we share that to the city social media page. And uh and i if y'all put out more, then we're you know, we're always happy to share that over. But but yeah. As much information about that as good.

SPEAKER_03 26:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

We want to protect the kids.

SPEAKER_03 26:35

Yeah, yeah. Keep everybody safe. I mean, that's that's what Deer Park's all about.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:40

So it the way it is now too is you know, adults can ride bicycles. They they so we do not put the same, obviously, restrictions on adults that we do on those six uh under sixteen. Right. So you're gonna find all these are geared towards under the age of sixteen. If you're an adult, you've got to follow the transportation code and the rules for bicycles and all of that to to ride. So we're expecting them to pay attention, read, know what they can do and can't do, and pass that and tell your kids that before you just turn them loose.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

Right.

unknown 27:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

So let's talk a little bit about like the blinking yellow lights.

SPEAKER_02 27:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

How do you feel about those? Are those going good?

SPEAKER_02 27:24

The the accidents at the beginning, I don't have the numbers with me right off, but they they we did have several accidents right off right off as as they the whole point of the flashing yellow light, as everybody should understand, is that you can clear intersections much quicker. Instead of sitting there waiting, you're sitting there and nobody's coming the other way, and you're sitting at a red light, and if you had a flashing yellow, you could clear the intersection and get on to where you want to go. The problem with the flashing yellows that we see over and over again is there's some lights, Pasadena Boulevard, South, or East Boulevard, south at Pasadena Boulevard. The way the road lines up, if there's some if there's especially trucks, pickups in the northbound left turn lane, you can't see if somebody's coming.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:15

It's very simple. If you can't see if somebody's coming, you don't go.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:19

I don't know how many cars I see will try and shoot out there, and the next thing you know, you got tires squalling and everything else. Because there's a car coming at 45 miles an hour. The other one is is uh Center Street at at Pasadena. It seems to be that if anybody's over there, you can't see if those lanes coming northbound if you can if you can uh tell if somebody's coming. So it's made to clear the intersection when it's safe to do so. If you cannot see if somebody's coming, it's not safe to do so.

SPEAKER_04 28:47

Right.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

And so that's every one of them that we've had, it's been like I don't think we've had any terribly serious accidents because the speeds aren't that great, and then people break, and so the actual impact speeds are you know not that high. But you're still gonna have an accident, you still could be have some kind of injury in your durns, you're gonna be f fixing your car.

SPEAKER_04 29:08

Right.

SPEAKER_02 29:09

So it's not worth it if you can't see, just don't go. Yeah, if it's obviously clear.

SPEAKER_01 29:14

Even if somebody's honking behind you. I had I had a daycare mom honking behind me the other day, and I'm like, I I don't know what you want me to do.

SPEAKER_03 29:23

I can't see not going. Anything.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

I'm like, there's a huge truck right across the intersection from me. I can't see around him. Right. Yeah, she was not happy with me, but that's fine.

SPEAKER_02 29:34

Yeah, they'll get over it.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

Yeah, it's fine. It's a new day tomorrow. Okay. So is Luella one lane or two lanes? I mean, you might want to answer that question because that's been coming back up in conversation.

SPEAKER_02 29:50

Oh, great. Yeah. So Luella is a two-lane road. Uh it's a very wide two-lane road.

unknown 29:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 29:56

Uh it doesn't help that you have a black, looks like tar or whatever, filling a crack that makes it look as if you have four lanes in some spots. Uh it's been looked at a number of times as to do we clearly market a two-lane or do we market a four-lane. And there's problems with both both of those solutions. And for example, go down to uh Pea Street at the elementary school there. If you make it a four-lane, then all of a sudden you got people parking in a lane when parents are lining up to get kids. You can't park in that lane. It's illegal. So if it's two-lane, you can park over there. If that's not going on and there's ten cars on Luella and you have somebody poking along at twenty and there's a wide shoulder and you want to go around, they just go around. Is there any great harm? None now. So right now, the the volume on Luella has never exceeded the point that we've had to make a decision which way to go with it. At different times, it chokes up, especially at the schools and for short periods of time, and the flexibility of not calling it one way or the other allows that to be dealt with. When there's nobody on Luella or very few, and people want to go around, they can do that. If the time comes that the volume on Luella bec was to increase to the point we had to decide, well then that would have to be a decision that gets made. But thus far it's been left with driver discretion and flexibility, and some folks like that, and some folks want it black and white, and it's just one of those that's not really black and white, but it is a two-lane road.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

He has spoken case rested. Okay. For now. For now to be continued.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

Maybe.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

Okay, so Jamie, can you give us a little bit of insight into kind of the drills and simulations that the city does to prepare for incidents?

SPEAKER_05 32:05

Okay. Currently we are working with a contractor doing a series of exercises. We did a tabletop exercise last fall in conjunction with the LAPC and some industry partners. We're expanding that this year to a functional exercise where we're going to do be doing more things and transitioning to a facility type incident. And then next year we'll be a full-scale where we'll be deploying more resources and doing more things. And at the same time, we'll be standing up the EOC, including communications involved in that, to take simulated calls and go through those steps. So, and still do a lot of things with other jurisdictions, LaPort and Pasadena, maybe doing exercises that they ask us to help participate in. Some of the public safety agencies, for their part, participate in and Baytown as well. So we're we're always working with that, and we're doing a lot of things with industry when they're having exercises as well for their EOC. I know you've sat through one or two of them.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Yeah. I've been through quite a few.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

I think Shirlene was dispatcher last time and she got a call about a snake on 225. It was hypothetical, but there was no snake on 225. But she didn't know how to respond. She was like, I don't know. Go out there and kill it.

SPEAKER_05 33:25

She just had to be in the wrong spot at the wrong time.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

She got dispatched, and I was she kept asking me questions. I'm like, I'm not dispatched.

SPEAKER_03 33:35

People ask me questions, things like that. I'm like, listen, a man's got to know his limitations. And I know where mine are.

SPEAKER_01 33:41

So then he points to me and says, go ask her.

SPEAKER_03 33:44

I'll help, but uh this sounds like a Caitlin problem.

SPEAKER_01 33:50

So let's talk about how to stay calm in the middle of an emergency and kind of how our neighbors can help children, elderly, pets, how can you help your neighbors more in an incident?

SPEAKER_05 34:03

You know in an incident as far as staying calm. I mean, it it's you may I know it it's impacted you and it's frightening and you really may not know what to do, but if you have a plan, you think about it, and if if this was to happen, what would I do? No, do that. Just think run simulation through your mind from time to time and take a deep breath, exhale. How can I help? What do I need to do to help save a protect my family? And then once that's all secured, what can I do to help my neighbor?

SPEAKER_02 34:36

Yeah, I think Jamie hit on it earlier. Do you have water and food to get you through three to five days? Is panicking gonna help here it that would be never. So the best thing you can do is, like Jamie said, is have resources on hand and know that you can take care of yourself and whoever's in your house. And do you have who you're gonna call? I mean, if you have to move, you have to do if you have to have help, who are you gonna call? Do you have those people to where you can call them, you know who they are that they're gonna come. If you don't, you need to either contact your church or some social organization you're affiliated with, or something somebody. You need to have a friend that you know you can call on if you have a problem. And obviously comes down to it, you you call the city depending on what your needs are. But the big thing is is have be prepared to some level. The more level you're prepared, the less likely you are to panic because you know you're you're gonna get through it and it's gonna be okay, even if it's uncomfortable, miserable. The winter storm, I mean, that was no fun there. Everybody's heat, unless you have a generator or whatever, which isn't that many of us. And so everybody just puts on extra clothes and gets through it. But you gotta have food, you gotta have water, you gotta have some resources and a plan. However basic it is, yeah. And just don't be sitting there and go, oh my gosh, what's happening? And then now trying to figure it out. Right.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

But with that, don't go and buy all of the toilet paper at H E B. Yes or all of the cases of water at H E B. It's gonna be a three or four-day problem and you don't need 172 bottles of water.

SPEAKER_02 36:20

Well, and I think a prep, a prep is is you know, if you keep three or four days of water on hand, you don't have to go do that.

SPEAKER_04 36:27

Right.

SPEAKER_02 36:28

If you especially during hurricane season or whatever, never let your car get below half a gallon of t of gas. Yeah, just go fill it up. That way, if it if it comes in, something's happening, you already got gas, you can load whatever you're gonna take. Yeah, have your stuff together to where if you know you're gonna evacuate, you want to say, you know what, I'm not hanging around and see what happens. Have your important papers and all that in a in a carry-on or whatever, have them located in one place, put it in the car, whatever clothes you're gonna take, and go. You already got gas, you already have the things you need. But if you have something that comes upon you, like the winter storm or the tornado, if you got hit in that, it's a little bit different, but once again, everybody outside of that little narrow channel was not affected. And so you get a lot of help coming in from that as well.

SPEAKER_05 37:17

And and with that, you know, as Chief mentioned, the you know, the winter storm and and a hurricane are widespread. So we're trying to get additional resources in there to help residents and those type of things. Not only are we trying to get it, but those other 15, 20 counties are trying to do the same thing, competing for the same resources. So, you know, have your own preparedness plan in place and and a supply of food and water just gets you through the few first few days.

unknown 37:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:47

Well, that's pretty much all we have. Are there any volunteer opportunities that maybe we could talk about? How the community can get more involved with like the police department or emergency services or anything?

SPEAKER_05 37:59

Well, certainly in emergency services, the fire department's volunteer fire department. So if you're interested in that, you can do that. EMS has a few volunteer positions open. But, you know, it might be something I'd think about if we could utilize volunteers in emergency management, but it's something we'll evaluate. Yeah. And of course, there's programs out there, the the CERT program, which is part of Base CERT, which really is a big operation with a lot of the bigger cities around us. They all combined a few years ago. And it's volunteers to help out in disasters type of things or special events.

unknown 38:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:33

So we have the uh Citizens Police Academy Alumni Association. Not sure how many members, I I would guess 60 or 70. The very active. They do back the blue uh every year, been raising a lot of money with Laporte's Association and getting involved a lot in the state. Now they went to the Texas Police Chief Association uh conference here week before last and assisted with the golf tournament that we had that raised about looks like probably fifty thousand dollars for our foundation, which is money that goes to fallen officers. Officers killed in the line of duty get a $10,000 check within 24 to 48 hours. That money goes directly to that. They were the the in during the entire place there that we were they had they were the only we had seven volunteers and and Sheila went. The city that we were in supplied two volunteers on Sunday night, zero on Monday, and one volunteer came from the Dallas area.

SPEAKER_00 39:33

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 39:34

So our volunteers carried that golf tournament.

SPEAKER_00 39:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:37

They did it as well last year. They had some help from Laporte. They were the title sponsor for the golf tournament last year. They split a $15,000 title sponsor and raised money for that foundation. They're getting more involved at the at the uh state level in their own association. But the only reason they're able to do that is because they're so active with us. They buy us stuff all the time. They just bought us DL swipes to go into our cars about at $12,000. So we the the ones that we had didn't work with the Motorola changeover. We didn't know that. We were gonna have to wait till October, a new budget year, to buy that. They went ahead and bought that for us early. They buy equipment for our weight room. Whatever it is that we need, we go to them and and if they have the money, they they they vote and give it to us. That's awesome. And so and they're in our building every single day. You can't walk the halls without seeing them. So uh there's a lot of involvement, the fire department and things that they have, and also at the police department, we have a lot of opportunities. If volunteers are looking for something to do, and we do try and match you up with what you want to do, not necessarily what you've done all your life. Some people are good with computers, they've had enough of that, they want to come help with something else. And somebody goes, Oh, you're good with computers, we'll do that, and then they never show up again. We try and make sure we give them a job that they have an interest in.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

Yeah. I want to do a ride along so bad. I know my whole childhood was basically one, but we'll uh hook you up. That would be great.

SPEAKER_02 41:09

Yeah, make that happen anytime.

SPEAKER_00 41:11

Stick me in the car with Frank.

SPEAKER_02 41:14

Hard he sits at his desk. I know. I'll get you somebody fun.

SPEAKER_01 41:21

I just want to bother him the whole time.

SPEAKER_03 41:24

Well, listen, guys, we really appreciate y'all having um taking the time to meet with us and doing this podcast. I know the a lot of the citizens have been asking for it, so you guys can be happy and don't forget to like, subscribe. We're everywhere you can watch podcasts. And until next time, we'll see you around campus.