901 Bagby: Inside The Mayor's Office

1.6M Houstonians Are Not Ready for Hurricane Season

• Houston Mayor's Office • Season 1 • Episode 10

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0:00 | 21:08

When Hurricane Beryl was bearing down on Houston, the wife of the city's top emergency manager decided — for the first time in years — to stay home. Beryl passed directly over their house. Brian Mason, Director of the City of Houston Office of Emergency Management, tells that story on camera, and uses it to explain why he gets his own family out of Houston 72 hours before any storm — a full day and a half before official evacuation orders typically come down.

Mason brings 26 years of emergency work to this conversation, from F5 tornadoes in Moore, Oklahoma to running the Emergency Operations Center for 2.4 million Houstonians. He walks us  through OEM's updated household guidance — the city has officially moved its recommended supply kit from 3 days to 7 days — and lays out the four pillars Houstonians should know: have a plan, have a kit, get connected to your neighbors, and use trusted sources like the National Weather Service and Houston OEM. He shares the specifics of his own family's contingency plan, including a designated meetup point at a gas station in Brenham on Highway 290 if cell service goes down. And he names the statistic that keeps him up at night: a 2025 Kinder Institute study found only one-third of Houstonians are prepared for a storm. With 2.4 million residents, that's roughly 1.6 million people who aren't ready. Mason also corrects a dangerous public misconception — 80 to 85 percent of storms that hit Houston spin up in the Bay of Campeche or Gulf of Mexico and reach landfall within 72 hours, not the five-day window most residents assume they'll get.

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SPEAKER_01

The Kinder Institute did a study on preparedness in 2025, and they found out that only about a third of Houstonians are prepared for an incident or a storm. That means there's 1.6 million people that are not prepared for the next storm or the next event we may have.

SPEAKER_00

From City Hall in downtown Houston, this is 901 Bagby inside the mayor's office. Welcome back to a special edition of 901 Bagby this week. We are getting you ready for hurricane season. And not just getting you ready, we're going to find out how the city prepares for this each and every year. We're joined this week by Brian Mason, the director of the Office of Emergency Management. Brian, good to see you. Thank you for having me. Thanks for coming in. This is a very important topic. You know, it comes around every year, but I feel like no matter how many times Houstonians hear it, we need a refresher every year. We got to prepare for hurricane season. As my old buddy Anthony Giannis on KPRC used to say, uh, we don't know how many we're going to get, but it only takes one. That's right.

SPEAKER_01

So we really, one of the things that the mayors wanted us to do, and one of the things that we've tried to shift an Office of Emergency Management is we always talk about preparedness when it comes to hurricane season, but we really want people prepared 365 days a year. Um down here in Houston, uh, think of the Derecho a couple years ago. We we tend to have what I would call kind of no notice events. And so we really want people to make sure they're prepared 365 days a year, not just June 1 through November 30th, but overarching preparedness items, you know, it's the basic stuff of we want to make sure people have a plan. Um, when you have your plan, um make sure if you know if you're in an evacuation zone, make sure you know how you would evacuate, uh, make sure you have a kit. Um, we're really wanting people to have um, we usually used to say three days of supplies. We're trying to stretch that to seven days. So food, water, medication, all those items for seven days. Um, we want to make sure that people are getting connected inside their community. Um a lot of connected communities are much more resilient and they recover much faster. Get to know your neighbor, is there somebody down the street that may need assistance? If you have an emergency, your neighbor next door is going to be the first person that can help you. Yeah, you can call 911. Yeah, the first responders are coming. But if you have an issue, your neighbor next door will be able to help you first. Um, and then the last thing is make sure you're staying uh connected and getting information from trusted resources. There's a lot of stuff on the internet. We talked a little bit about AI and some of those items. Um, make sure you're getting stuff from the National Weather Service, Flood Control District, uh Houston OEM trusted resources to get accurate information.

SPEAKER_00

Let's uh let's go back, if we could, chat about kind of your history, your resume, and kind of what brought you here. Um, you are no stranger to emergencies. Going all the way back to you and I talked off camera about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of what, 15 years ago. Talk a little bit about your previous work and how that's prepared you to run OEM like you are today.

SPEAKER_01

Sure. So I have about 25 years of experience, I think 26 years to be exact, of um a wide variety of items. So I first started my career doing true emergency response stuff. I was kind of the boots on the ground that would respond to the train derailment or the hurricane or the natural disaster and make sure things were picked up and taken care of properly. Um, kind of just transitioned after 9-11 into more homeland security items. So did a lot more bioterrorism, kind of counterterrorism items. Um, and then 12 years ago joined the city, started at the Houston Airport system, uh, did safety and emergency management at the airport system, and then transitioned over to public works and then now Office of Emergency Management.

SPEAKER_00

Is there something about uh just safety in general? Or is there something about uh maybe the nature of emergencies that you're drawn to where you can really be in a position to help people? How does it kind of sit with you?

SPEAKER_01

I I think it's just wanting to serve the community, wanting to help people out, um, seeing people in need, uh doing everything you can to make sure they're prepared and and help them recover from, you know, a challenging situation.

SPEAKER_00

So so going back, um what what kind of stands out to you about some of the storms? Are there any are there any storms in particular that like you like these ones you'll never forget? I mean, Katrina could be an obvious.

SPEAKER_01

Well, so maybe an odd one in 1998, I just got out of college. Uh, there was the Moore Oklahoma City tornadoes that happened. That was an F5 that ripped through that part of Oklahoma. It was one of my first kind of field assignments. And I went out and followed this hurricane, I'm sorry, this tornado path. And I watched this thing leapfrog certain neighborhoods, completely destroy other neighborhoods. And it was a very eye-opening experience. And and really seeing pulling into smaller, smaller towns and you know, these these people's lives were completely destroyed. They lost everything. The the city hall was destroyed, all their infrastructure, everything, and just seeing how people were adjusting and adapting to that. And and most of those people, believe it or not, were had a good positive spirit. It's we're gonna rebuild, we're gonna figure it out. This is our community, this is our hometown. And that was just a real eye-opener for me when I literally got to drive from town to town to town and see who was the lucky ones where it jumped over them and who were the unfortunate ones that were in the middle of the path.

SPEAKER_00

Well, you've seen that firsthand and just that unpredictable nature of weather where one house across the street can be totally different than the other one. Correct.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So going back to that, that response, um, Juven drove into a big subdivision in Moore just south of Oklahoma City. And uh the first three or four streets of the subdivision were completely fine. The next three or four streets had some missing shingles and a little bit of damage, and then the next eight to ten streets were just completely destroyed, and then you saw the thing on the uh same thing on the backside. So Mother Nature has her own plan and she's gonna kind of do her own thing. No, she does not.

SPEAKER_00

But I'll bet from that ex starting with that experience way back when you've learned a lot about preparing along the way, because you can only I I I hate to say it because it sounds that it's that cliche, right? We we hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. What other option do we have?

SPEAKER_01

That's it. And and even that's my job on a day-to-day basis is I'm here to over over worry, right? So even right now, while we're filming this, we have some rain moving in. Um, we may have six to eight inches of rain throughout this week. So my job is to over-prepare, make sure we're staffing and staging high water vehicles, doing a lot of things that if bad does happen, we're able to respond and support the community.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I want to talk to you a little bit about that because I think it's interesting for Houstonians to know a little bit more about what goes on behind the scenes. I mean, I think some of us have a picture of maybe there's a war room somewhere where you guys are gathering during these times. Take me through a typical kind of severe weather week in Houston and how the city prepares for that.

SPEAKER_01

Um, so this week's a good example. You know, we start getting weather updates from the National Weather Service probably 48 to 72 hours before the weather event may start to unfold. Um, we're communicating that with all the department directors, um, fire police. And, you know, one of the big things on the mayor is not just City of Houston resources, but the county and the state as well. So we're coordinating with Harris County Sheriff Office, with Harris County Fire Marshal Office, with the different precinct commissioners. They have different assets and tools. With T Dem, uh Texas Division of Emergency Management, where are they going to be staging resources and moving things in? And so I would say that probably the most important part of my job is I get a lot of data and information, and I try to turn it into useful intelligence for the decision makers, for Mayor Whitmeyer, or for other decision makers to make decisions based on all that information we've been able to turn into useful intelligence.

SPEAKER_00

Interesting. So in those moments, how stressful are those moments for you processing this data, getting it ready, preparing a report or an opinion, I guess, in that sense?

SPEAKER_01

I didn't have any gray hair until two years ago, and then it all started to pop it in. No, it's it's what we do, it's what we live for. Um, I can't tell you I did make a transition in my career at one point. I I kind of got out of the response work and went more into the engineering consulting side. And that lasted about six to eight months. And then when other events were happening, I was just like, I need I feel like I needed to be out there doing that work because that's just what I really enjoy doing. My my wife may not always like it. Um, we kind of have a joke at home. Um, we never know what's gonna be on the other end of my cell phone when it rings. It could be something just checking in, or it could be a very we had the 96-inch water line break in Houston about four or five years ago, uh, where we flooded 610 from a water line breaking. We had to go into a big boil water notice. So you just never know what's gonna be on the other end of the line. And and really serving the 2.4 million residents of of Houston is is what what I really live to do.

SPEAKER_00

Speaking of the other end of the line, do you remember when you got that call from the mayor? And and I ask a lot of the directors the same thing. Do you remember that moment you got the call and said, oh boy, I think it's uh time for me to maybe take a new gig or do something new?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean, I I was honored uh when someone asked you to to take that that role. Um, fourth largest country, uh fourth largest city in the country. I will tell you, from my point of view, it's it's a dream job. It's things that 20 years ago, 25 years ago, I wouldn't have necessarily thought that I would be sitting in the seat. So when you get that call, um, you know it may be a short-term gig, you know, it may it's not going to go on for 15 or 20 years. It may be a five to eight year, you know, opportunity. You come here, you do the best you can while you're here. And um, when it's time to move on to something else, you just look at the next, you know, chapter in in your book of life.

SPEAKER_00

I think what's interesting though about you is uh because you have such a different track, like you've you've been through the airport system, Transstar Public Work. So you have some built-in relationships already within the city. How does that kind of impact your day-to-day work? I'm just thinking of the current uh fire chief Munoz, for example, you guys used to work together. Correct. How does how does that history and those relationships, how do those come into play?

SPEAKER_01

You you cannot you cannot replace that. That is um, that's the key to having a well coordinated response and and all of us working together. And um, you know, 95% of the time we're all gonna agree on everything and it's gonna be great. And those are the times we focus on. And every now and then, if we have a disagreement, we have that strong relationship to fall back on and know that um it's about always what's doing right for the residents in and around Houston and doing everything we can to serve them.

SPEAKER_00

Can you talk a little bit about um any improvements or changes that the city's made uh with regard to storm response or recovery? Yeah, god forbid something happens this summer.

SPEAKER_01

Um quite a few things. So some simple things from um physical things. We've recently, uh probably the last six to nine months, we did kind of an audiovisual uh upgrade, AV upgrade of our EOC. A lot of our stuff was 12, 15 years old, end of life. It was dying. Um got a chance to refresh some of those items. Um AI is becoming a more readily available tool that we're using, um, being able to help kind of predict some items based on current forecasts, future events, and really being able to kind of lean forward. Uh obviously, GIS and computer technologies are one of the things that we're really leveraging. And then I think just by and large, you know, the the mayor definitely sets a tone and to be honest, an expectation of partnerships and collaboration. It's it's not an individual thing with the city. Um, it's not just us and the county, it's us and it's the state and it's the feds. We all have to be working together to to serve the residents of Houston.

SPEAKER_00

Sure. And and with you know, with weather and weather in mind, uh you really never know where a storm's gonna hit. And as we've seen so many times over the years, uh I can think back to uh after Hurricane Ike as an example where really it's it's the neighbors coming together. It is communities coming together.

SPEAKER_01

It takes all of us to the extent, right? Absolutely. And and that's what I mentioned just briefly at the beginning was being a connected community makes all the difference in the world. Um, I used to live in the Kingwood area, and whenever we would have down trees or an issue, we didn't wait for the city to come out and clear that for us. You know, a lot of us got on the end of our chainsaw and we just started cutting and clearing trees. So um I I will tell you just kind of a a quick kind of nerdy stat. Um, the Kinder Institute did a study on preparedness in 2025 uh through the University of Rice and a Rice University, and they found out that only about a third of Houstonians are prepared for an incident or a storm. So let's just do math. If we have 2.4 million people in Houston and only a third are prepared, meaning two-thirds are not, that means there's 1.6 million people that are not prepared for the next storm or the next event we may have. And so that that's what keeps me up at night is little things that people could have done to be a little bit more prepared, um, could have could make a big difference when we have a big event. If if we have a massive Cat Four or Cat 5 hurricane and we don't have power and we don't have poatable water and we don't have a lot of those challenges, it's it could get tough for folks. So um those are the things that really keep me up at night are people really as individuals doing their part uh to make sure they're as prepared as they possibly can for whatever the event may occur.

SPEAKER_00

And and going back to that, because we did uh touch on it in the beginning, you say these days we're looking for if we can have it seven days supply, stretching that out. We're talking about water, food, medications. It's a giant list, but kind of off the top of your head. Let's go back through it again. Sure, people.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean, basic stuff, uh batteries, obviously non-perishable food. Um, medications, a big one, making sure you have all your something as simple as taking a Ziploc bag and putting all your important documents and leaving them in a Ziploc bag to where if something happens, you can grab them and go. Um, I have a real odd thing with our family that if cell phone service goes down and we can't communicate, my family has a plan that if we get separated, that um I have family that live in Austin. So if you go from here up to Austin on 290, there's a gas station when you make the left-hand turn on a 290 in Brenham. We have a plan that we would meet there every day at 6 p.m. until we're able to get reunited. So just little things. I know once again, that's maybe being too paranoid, but if something happens, I want to make sure I can get back together with my family and my loved ones.

SPEAKER_00

That might sound too paranoid, but to anyone who lived through Rita, for example, we had a traffic nightmare. I mean, who knows how long it would have taken you to get to that gas station back then. I was gonna ask you about things you do with your family, um, and that's a good one. Is there anything else from from what you guys do that the people could learn from?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I say some other so some other things. Um, and I'll and I'll laugh because my wife isn't always super happy about them, but um, usually if we have a storm coming, we evacuate at minus 72. We don't wait till the storm gets closer. Um, I want them to get out of town, get to a safe location. They usually go to Austin because we wouldn't call normally for an evacuation until minus 24 or minus 36.

SPEAKER_00

You're talking about hours here for the within 72 hours, you're saying if it's if it's that close, because you're gonna be busy.

SPEAKER_01

Correct. That's exactly right. So, yeah, minus 72 hours before the storm. I try to get my family out. Um, if we were gonna do an evacuation, we would do it at minus 24, minus 36, depending on what's going on. The challenge with an evacuation is we have to get the people off Galveston Island first before we worry about people down in, you know, Houston that need to evacuate. So trying to sequence all that um, because those people down on the coast, if we have a 12 to 14 foot storm surge, as grim as this may sound, it's probably not going to turn out very well for them if they're staying on that island. So having all that sequence going back to Rita, it taking 24 hours for people to go to Austin or to Dallas, I don't want my family to be in the middle of that, number one. But number two, where we live, we're not in an evacuation zone. So, you know, if you live in Katy or Cyprus or Woodlands or Conroe, you getting on the road at that time frame clogs up all the roads for those people down south that really need to get out of that area because they truly are in a life safety situation. So I try to practice what we preach. We try to get out of there way before the storm would come. Now my wife, six times, has evacuated for absolutely no reason. And she reminds me when she's driving back um how frustrated she was that she evacuated. But the ironic thing is when Beryl was coming, uh, grandma came and got got the kids, got the kids to a safe location. My wife decided to stay at home and Beryl went right over our house. And so that's why I was like, that's why we normally try to evacuate early. So um, you can never be too overprepared. Um, because if something bad happens, you just want to make sure that you can take care of your family and loved ones.

SPEAKER_00

And you you bring up another good point with the evacuation zones, which we did touch on at the beginning, but it seems like there's more than just one reason to know you're in evacu in an evacuation zone. One, so you can get out, and two, potentially so you can stay out of other people's way. Right. They're trying to get to places because everyone's got their own plan, right? Some people are going to Dallas, some people are going, well, we got to know where the storm's going, right? So it's a lot to think about.

SPEAKER_01

And and two, we try to tell people you don't need to evacuate to Austin or Dallas. Maybe you just evacuate to Katy or Cyprus where you have friends or family, right? Get to where we always say we want you to evacuate or run from the saltwater storm surge. And then we usually hide from the wind. And then once the wind and the storm passes us, we'll evaluate how bad is bad. You may decide if we're going to be without power for two weeks. You may decide to evacuate at that point after the storm's already passed. But we aren't clogging up the roadways for the people down in Galveston and Texas City that potentially could be in a life safety situation. Let's let them get out of here and clear. And then once again, if you're in Katy or Cyprus, just, you know, hunker down right at the storm and we'll see what happens from there.

SPEAKER_00

These are always good messages, too, given how many people are moving here all the time. Um, obviously, we have a lot of commuters that come and go day to day from those places you're talking about, but we've got complete newbies coming in from all over the country, places that have never experienced. That's right.

SPEAKER_01

And I think part of the misconception too is a lot of people think we're always going to have that minus 120 hour or five-day notice or minus 96 or 4-day notice. Over 80%, 85 plus percent of the storms that impact in and around the Houston area, most of those storms don't form until within 72 hours of making landfall. So most of our storms aren't those ones that come all the way across the Atlantic basin and we see it for a week or two weeks coming. Um, a lot of ours spin up in the, you know, the Bay of Campeche or the Gulf of Mexico, they spin up pretty quickly and they're on as quick. So you can never be too prepared and making sure that once again, those people along the coast that are in a true life safety situation, let's think about our fellow residents and our fellow community members in and around the region. Let's make sure we get them to a safe location. And once again, if you're in woodlands or Conroe, you may have some inconveniences, but you're not in that same life safety situation as the people down on the coast.

SPEAKER_00

Sure. That's a great place to leave it. Is there anything that you want to add? I don't have any more questions for you, but if there's something that you would like to leave, one message with the people of Houston and the surrounding area about this upcoming season that's about to start, I'd love to hear.

SPEAKER_01

So uh everyone's talking about the big Super El Nino that's supposed to come. So it's kind of a weather meteorology thing where we tend to have more of a less active hurricane season in the Atlantic basin. Um, as Anthony says, I would remind everybody it only takes one. Um, and the last time we got hit by a major hurricane in 1983, Hurricane Alicia, that was also an El Nino year as well. So just because we have the El Nino doesn't mean we need to let our guard down. Always stay vigilant. Um, please be prepared 365 days a year, not just for hurricane season. And then I'll I'll say one last thing. When it comes to your kit, um, don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Um, don't get overwhelmed and think I have to go spend a thousand dollars this weekend to build a kit. Every time you go to the grocery store, buy an extra jar of peanut butter, buy an extra can of beans, buy an extra box of rice. There's some things you can slowly chip away. And in a matter of a handful of weeks or a few months, you'll have a pretty good kit. So don't think you have to go out and spend a bunch of crazy money to build a kit. It's about making sure you have enough things to keep you and your family safe and secure if we have an event or a storm.

SPEAKER_00

And as we know, it's not just hurricane season, as you said. 365, we got to be ready. That's right. Brian, thanks for your time. Brian Mason, director of the Office of Emergency Management in the City of Houston. Really appreciate it, sir. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01

Appreciate it.