Polk County Emergency Management Coordinator Courtney Comstock reviewed the county’s hurricane response plan during “Cruise Into Readiness,” the 8th annual Hurricane Party hosted by the Polk County Office of Emergency Management June 11.
Five days – or 120 hours – from landfall:
- The clock begins and the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) is activated.
- Activate Veoci, WebEOC, and TRG (communication, incident tracking software and resource management tools), have EOC staff log in to check their accounts and work to fix any issues.
- Begin daily situation reports and conference call briefings with public officials, responders and partners at the beginning of each operational period (12-hour periods).
- Briefings will include staff assignments, weather forecasts and other preparations (including documenting expenses for FEMA reimbursement).
- Fuel emergency vehicles.
- Conduct a pre-landfall test of generators at county facilities and request that water utilities, hospital, volunteer fire departments, nursing homes and schools do the same.
- Begin releasing daily public service announcements, warnings and alerts.
- Request that nursing homes review their evacuation plans and make contact with their contracted transporters and receiving entities.
- Provide news forecasts and preparedness information to the public.
Four days – or 96 hours – from landfall:
- Contact fuel stations for vendor delivery times.
- Touch base with each disaster relief commodity point-of-distribution (POD) location point of contact and request the location be cleared for POD set-up and schedule staff and volunteers.
Three days – or 72 hours – from landfall:
- County judge will consider issuing local declaration of disaster in anticipation of need for state resources.
- For secondary pod locations, we will ask our volunteer fire departments to identify a method for commodity pick-up and schedule volunteers.
- Line up meals and plans to house staff and state/federal responders.
- Contact State of Texas Emergency Assistance Registry (STEAR) registrants and assist with preparation needs.
- Remind all response agencies to record labor, equipment, volunteer time and expenses.
- OEM will urge the public to prepare for the storm and ask that they inventory homes and property for their insurance purposes.
- Shelter managers will schedule staff, volunteers.
- Shelter staff will inventory supplies and plan meals.
Two days – or 48 hours – from landfall:
- County judge will consider issuing an evacuation order of substandard housing and/or flood-prone areas. Prior to order, we will open shelters.
- In coordination with our AgriLife department, we will activate the county animal sheltering plan and begin preparations.
- Department of aging will deliver shelf-stable meals to meals-on-wheels participants.
One day – or 24 hours – from landfall:
- Have county public information officer issue public service announcements on evacuation traffic and road conditions.
- Monitor fuel stations.
- Pre-position resources (EMS, fire services, law enforcement) as needed.
During the storm:
- EOC staff will monitor the situation, respond to the needs of the public, partner agencies and responders and fill resource requests.
One day post-landfall:
- Assess needs and prepare to send search/rescue and damage assessment teams into the field.
- OEM to begin daily checks on hospital, nursing homes, shelters and utility companies.
- Consider activating debris removal and monitoring contracts.
- Open POD sites.
- Issue pass with information on POD sites, shelters, road closures, hours of operation for pharmacies and grocery stores and fuel availability.
Two days post-landfall:
- Identify infrastructure damage.
- OEM will being necessary assessments to obtain presidential declaration.
Three days post-landfall:
- Plan to move into recovery.
- Demobilize state resources/assets as needed.
- Identify location for disaster recovery center.
