Officials want to be ready for tornado, fire or attack
By Peggy Heinkel-Wolfe and Matthew Zabel
Denton Record-Chronicle
The Dallas Morning News
Copyright 2007 THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
DENTON COUNTY, Texas — Within hours after a monster tornado annihilated a swath of Williamson County in 1997, Jody Gonzalez, then an emergency manager for nearby Hayes County, was standing on a hill overlooking the devastation in the tiny town of Jarrell.
The view might have been like any other cow pasture, he said, except there were no cows. And every few feet, there was a concrete slab where a house used to be.
“No toilets,” he said “No cars, no trees, no shrubs.”
Since becoming fire marshal and head of Denton County’s emergency management, Mr. Gonzalez has battled catastrophic wildfires, sheltered waves of hurricane evacuees and drilled for terrorist attacks. But it’s the sound of his pager, triggered by the threat of severe weather, that keeps him up at night.
“There’s nothing we can do to prevent it,” Mr. Gonzalez said. “We can only come in afterward.”
Emergency preparedness has received far more resources since the Sept. 11 attacks, and many communities, Denton County included, have beefed up their plans since then.
Even with the Dallas-Fort Worth area rated “likely” for a terrorist attack, Mr. Gonzalez steps back from that discussion.
Instead, he said, people should prepare for what’s most likely to happen. In Denton County, that’s tornadoes and wildfires, he said.
Denton County’s plan appears to comply with state and federal law, said David McEntire, associate professor of public administration at the University of North Texas. But a good plan is only the first step.
Dr. McEntire studied the emergency response to the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City.
That response was not bad, he said, but the response to Hurricane Katrina showed there is a lot of work to do.
“They had a plan,” he said. “What they didn’t have was the capability to implement their plan. There was way too much work and too few emergency managers on staff.”
County Commissioner Bobbie J. Mitchell said Denton County is mostly ready for an emergency.
An emergency drill in Corinth two or three years ago went pretty well, Ms. Mitchell said, but another one would be a good idea.
“Yes, I think we’re ready. We’ve got work to do, but I think we’re a lot more ready than we were before 9/11,” she said.
Ms. Mitchell serves on the North Central Texas Council of Governments’ emergency preparedness committee.
That board has helped city and county governments work more closely together to respond to a disaster.
To be better prepared, county employees need to be more familiar with the plan and what their roles are in a disaster, Ms. Mitchell said.
Mr. Gonzalez is working on some materials to address that, she said.
“If a tornado strikes the Lee Walker Government Center here in Lewisville and Jody is in Denton, we need to know what to do right away,” Ms. Mitchell said.
Local officials are expected to seek training on emergency preparedness since, by law, they have certain duties during a disaster.
If any of Denton County’s 43 municipalities is overwhelmed by a local disaster, they are expected to call on the county for assistance, according to the county’s assistant emergency manager, Brad Simpkins. Some of Denton County’s smaller cities may not have ever declared a disaster.
Denton County officials “declare one to three disasters a year,” Mr. Simpkins said.
Mr. Gonzalez and Dr. McEntire expressed frustration at the public’s unwillingness to be personally prepared for emergencies.
The best thing people can do is pick up pamphlets to learn how they can prepare for likely emergencies and address some issues in their home, Mr. Gonzalez said.
Because the area is prone to severe weather, people should at least invest in an inexpensive battery-powered AM-FM radio and a weather service radio.
In addition to weather alerts, the county uses the weather radios to issue area-specific warnings about other hazards as well.
Mr. Gonzalez also recommends that families prepare a kit that can supply basic needs for 72 hours.