02/22/2021
Shared by Blake Margolis - Rowlett City Council, Place 1 in response to the snow storm
- The City did not have the resources at the time to drive vehicles around with loud speakers. Every officer and Fire apparatus was running emergency calls back-to-back, and that was even with boosted staff.
- As part of the 2021 Bond Election, there is an item to purchase an all-new outdoor warning siren system. These new sirens, if purchased, will have the capability of sending worded messages out to the city if that becomes necessary. I suspect we will have to write up a use-policy for that if we get those new sirens. The new sirens will also have PTZ cameras, weather stations, and be a lot more loud. There will also be power redundancy built into the sirens due to the solar powered battery back-ups and hardwired power.
- The City does have four massive generator trailers, however, one was being used to generate Fire Station 2, and the other three were being used to generate lift stations that were temporarily without power.
- As part of the FY2022 amended budget, council added the purchase of new large generators for other lift stations so that we can relieve some of the requirement for the generator trailers that we have.
- There is already talks being had about putting a large generator at the Community Centre. No formal decision has been made on that yet.
Our back-up solution noted in the Emergency Operations Plan was to use the Rowlett High School as a shelter. However, the generator that powers their building would not operate the AC and heating system.
- This weather event pointed out some operational issues that we have in terms of preparedness for long-term and wide-spread power outages.
The City of Rowlett is currently undergoing an “After-Action” survey of all department directors and upper-management so we have an identified list of things that we did right, and did wrong, as well as things we could have done better.
Stay tuned. The “After-Action” report will possibly be discussed at an upcoming council meeting in the work-session.
Also, in response to “why don’t our police vehicles have on-board generators?”
Blake:
“We have switched to Chevrolet Tahoe police interceptors.
At this time, Ford is only installing the power pro’s in their F150 trucks. It is a very cool feature though. Here is one of the new Tahoes.”
