An official report of last week’s flood damage caused by heavy rains and the overflow of Lake Brownwood was given by Mayor Stephen Haynes at Tuesday’s Brownwood City Council meeting. According to Haynes, the damage was less than what was expected.
“I can’t emphasize enough the team role that everyone played when we had the event,” said Haynes. “I certainly want to say that we are thankful that the event was managed correctly. We had very little incident of property damage and limited injury. Certainly the one loss of life, everyone joins me in condolences to the family. But given the magnitude of the event, it went very, very well.”Haynes explained that the Emergency Management opened the Emergency Operations Center at Fire Station 1 at 2 p.m. on Wednesday and it was deactivated at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday.
“We had numerous departments, numerous, nearly all of our departments were involved in some way,” said Haynes. “Everyone that participated played an important role. I don’t want to skip over any department, because it took all of us to get through a very difficult time.”
He then read the list of activities performed by all agencies and departments involved in flood management and emergency operations during the heavy rains and flooding last week.
Emergency Management activated resources from the Incident Management Team from the Texas A&M Forestry Service, a high profile vehicle Strike Team from TxDOT which was deployed from Fort Worth, two rescue boats from the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department in Austin, two rescue boats from Texas Task Force 1.
The city evacuated a total of 38 people from the flood area, coordinated with the City of Early and Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) for road closures and traffic redirection, and kept the public informed through the media and social media outlets. The city requested emergency declarations through the emergency management coordination.
The city’s street department closed roads and channelized traffic to prevent the public from driving in the flooded areas. Closures were communicated with the Police Department, Fire Department and emergency center.
Two locations were set up and staffed to provide sand bags for residences and businesses. Six people made sand bags and helped the public load them. The water and wastewater departments also assisted in the sand bag distribution and utilized equipment including an excavator, and two dump trucks. A skid steer loader and six people worked at the Bayou Bridge to remove the debris from the road and pushed trees under the bridge to keep them from stacking up and causing an obstruction.
After the event, the street department used water trucks to wash the roadways down and provided dump trucks and front end loaders to clean up debris.
The city monitored the low lying infrastructure, saved a stranded dog, looked to inflow and infiltration of rain flow in the sewers and kept sewer issues clean. They treated all the storm water flow that came from the wastewater treatment plant and kept the city in compliance during the event.
Two crane trucks were provided by the sanitation department.
In the health department, a call list of volunteers was activated, along with code red for businesses. Emergency Management Facebook was kept up to date, set up and staffed a shelter at the coliseum (where 5 people stayed overnight), provided medical treatment, triage care, animal care, translators and facilitated clothing replacement with Good Samaritan Ministries and initiated transitions to more permanent placement. Additional care for shelter was provided by the Salvation Army, the Turtle Restaurant, and Dairy Queen fed the staff.
Red Cross and CERT opened a shelter in Early.
Flood damage inspections were performed at restaurants and businesses.
The facilities department manned the shelter overnight.
The fire department rescued 10 from Riverside Park and one from C.C. Woodson Road and Broadway, responded to a natural gas leak in front of the Hampton Inn, responded to five structures in flood areas to check for occupants, and responded to numerous normal medical calls during the event.
The Police Department manned the EOC and coordinated with dispatch, monitored flood and directed traffic. They also coordinated with HPU DPS to help provide security at the shelter and traffic control downtown.
At the Airport, they monitored the flood waters, and took readings of Salt Creek where it crosses Hwy 183 and FM 3100 and monitored FAA Bridge and low water crossings on the airport grounds.
The IT provided technical support and set up the EOC rooms, including three phones, projector and laptops, set up printers and loaded Google Earth on the laptops. They monitored radio communications to make sure everything was working correctly.
In engineering, water levels were monitored and gauges, they reported water levels to the EOC, managed flood maps and projected water levels based on historical data and current data.
Development services went door to door to verify flood damage and inspect buildings for safety.
Fleet services checked the fire trucks for damages from use during the flood.
City hall answered phones and assisted numerous concerned citizens.
All the departments reported damage assessment for future planning and reimbursement.
Mayor Haynes emphasized, “This is the kind of role that our city employees play all the time. They do everything that is asked of them and they continue to do more and more when we have these emergency events. So I am very, very proud of the effort that our city employees made, very proud of the effort that they made to prevent property damage and loss of life during this event. Thank you for your work.”
Haynes also added that having staff members who had experienced the larger floods in the recent past, helped provide historical data which helped the EOC staffers to predict where the flooding concerns would happen as the event progressed.
Pictured above is the City of Brownwood’s Fire Station 1 where the EOC was housed, its parking lot filled with emergency vehicles.
Below are photos of other vehicles which assisted in the flood management efforts.
Texas A&M Forest Service Incident Mangement Team vehicle and all-hazard incident management trailer
High profile vehicles brought in by TxDOT to assist.
