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Office of Emergency Management
Fort Bend Herald - Hurricane in the air
By Stephen Palkot, originally published August 18, 2008
Will the BIG STORM ever hit Fort Bend County? All we can do is be prepared.
A hurricane has made landfall in Matagorda Bay, and is creeping inland, bringing winds at 110 mph to the Fort Bend County area. Along a typical street in Rosenberg or Richmond, this kind of storm could mean downed power lines, airborne metal traffic signs and uprooted greenery.
This is a situation planners at the Fort Bend County Office of Emergency Management have been looking at for years, based on imagined scenarios where a system exactly like 1961's Hurricane Carla makes landfall on a number of points along the Gulf Coast.
Jeff Braun, Fort Bend's emergency management coordinator, said a worst-case scenario would be for the storm to make landfall near Freeport, leaving Fort Bend County in its northeast quadrant, which historically has been the most dangerous section of a hurricane. For study purposes, they have named this fictional storm Hurricane Carly.
Fort Bend County during Tropical Storm Edouard this year and Hurricane Rita in 2005 may have gone without major damage, but Braun said his office nevertheless stays prepared for the worst.
"A 111 mph wind can do a lot of damage over a sustained amount of time, and that's what we're looking at," he said.
In 2005, Hurricane Rita turned east of the Houston area, but Braun points out Jasper and other inland counties experienced significant storm damage.
"They were maybe as far north as we are. Those places received tremendous wind damage, trees were damaged, the roofs had a lot of damage," he said.
Easily the most deadly aspect of a hurricane, storm surge, would not affect Fort Bend County, said Braun, making it highly unlikely county officials would call for a mandatory evacuation.
Nevertheless, wind damage and rainfall present great concern to the Fort Bend County area.
Even a Category 4 hurricane would not likely destroy a well-built, modern home, but Braun said heavy winds could cause roofing shingles to come undone and could make deadly projectiles out of everyday objects.
However, residents of mobile homes would be highly advised to evacuate or find a designated shelter.
Braun said Fort Bend County officials would be busy in the buildup to a storm coordinating traffic management for residents of coastal counties which are being evacuated, and shelters-of-last-resort would be established in the time before a hurricane gets at its worst.
However, Braun said emergency responders would be kept inside once winds pick up to about 45 or 50 mph, and would not return outside until the storm has passed.
"We're going to protect our first responders first because we need them to be here to go out after the storm and do what they have to do," he said.
The prospect of objects from lawn chairs to building materials and fallen trees blocking roadways has prompted county officials in recent years to develop a debris-management plan, wherein the county's own Road and Bridge Department and possibly an outside contractor would work to clear streets and other public spaces.
Also, the county today enjoys the benefit of hundreds of graduates from the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program, said Braun, who have been trained in first aid and skills like the use of a fire extinguisher and even techniques for removing heavy objects from people.
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