Hurricane Francine INTENSIFIES: Gov. Greg Abbott's EMERGENCY Plan

but we're also Ming right now the ongoing tropical storm that is expected to strengthen Francine likely to become a hurricane later this afternoon or this evening and is also expected to make landfall in Louisiana in just about 24 hours a live look there at our computer xrad you can see just the amount of rain is bringing to all of the gulf uh States including Texas we're also hearing right now from governor of Texas Greg Abbott detailing some of the storm surge flooding concerns in that region let's listen into this amongst other officials on live now response effort we've also in the past uh disasters had the state Advocate on our behalf to receive CBG Disaster Recovery money flood mitigation assistance monies and so as a result our drainage systems are much better off today than they were when we had Harvey our uh fee wallet being improved because of advocating with our federal counterpart for Under the Water Resources development act and so uh you know I can't say enough good about the partnership that we've had and the assistance that yall have provided uh and the communications that that we've enjoyed with the state and I want to deeply appreciative also want to say that uh during barl and during other stor forms where we've had power outages eny Texas has uh brought to bear all the resources necessary for quick recovery and we did we have not experienced the types of episodes that Houston experienced during the barrel with you know delays because of inadequate resources brought to be good to hear judge well same thing uh you know judge branck always does a really good job of covering all the details and before I get to so uh but same thing I just appreciate you coming I appreciate what the state uh you know I wasn't here as long as he has been I've only been in this position for 5 years and so I've I'm kind of catching some of the last recent changes that TM has done but I know it's a lot easier and a lot more efficient and effective for us to get stuff from one location we make one phone call and then we get a lot of the resources that I think we used to have to chase down to get it uh having uh you know a speaker feeling as well Senator Nichols these folks we can call and talk to they always answer the phone I know sometimes they probably like not to but they do it it's a uh we have a a huge uh amount of resources that we have to our availability uh my Emergency Management coordinator Joel ardway does a fantastic job we all coordinate together all the counties coordinate together in this region because it affects all of us and even if it doesn't hit us direct we want to help our neighbors and we all do that and so it's it's just important that we're that we're able to do that now and that we're able to to kind of keep that on track again to our neighbors in Louisiana we want to you know we wish them the best and our prayers are with them but uh we are prepared in Orange County we're prepared if something if this thing does make a change we know that we're ready to go uh energy again to everybody's point they have done a really good job in the past is with making sure we have quick recovery and we have very little power loss and if we do it's recovered fairly fast so we appreciate that uh our other agencies with Tex doot from teex doot Parkson Wildlife all the different AG Glo everybody coming in help it's been a very good effort to it and then when we have events like this we have this that takes place and people get to know that we are prepared and we're ready to go in case this thing turns so but thank you okay good job mayor well Governor uh welcome to bont Texas we're uh it's a pleasure to have you here wish it was under different circumstances but we're grateful for the state we're grateful for all the state resources that are here and uh have been so helpful and certainly uh the city of BMA we want to remind all our residents to be vigilant and pay attention to this storm it still uh has a long ways to go and we want to make sure that we keep all our residents safe I know our our emergency Operation Center is stood up ready to go we we're well prepared so are all our uh departments within the city and we'll certainly respond and meet the needs of all our residents but we do want to make sure we keep them well informed but and really appreciate the local and state Partnerships that we have you got it thank you Chief thank you governor and uh I want to thank the elected officials here at this table and it is great communicating with them and knowing that you're on on the front line of taking care of your citizens as well uh Governor you mentioned 24 state agencies focused on this Mission that's over 1100 men and women traveling from outside of the area to support our state agency employees that are already here supporting our local partners and local governments please fire any Ms that are here I just want to take a second to thank those 1100 men and women that are spending time away from their families away from their homes to be here to support Texans in time of need we've been in contact with our counterparts in Louisiana we're ready to offer assistance to them if needed but I need the media to help us get this message out this the public should not be lulled into a false sense of security that there will be no impacts to Southeast Texas we need to be ready if there are impacts you can see we have state agencies ready to support but nothing will protect a family more than a protected family taking care of them El so please have a family communication plan take time to talk to your friends and family uh today this afternoon and make sure you have the resources that you need very good we'll take a few questions anyone all right well thank you go I was wondering what is this teaching us to be done for like the future of our and obviously we in the now what does that conation so listen this this is a drill that we go through uh to show how prepared we are regardless of the circumstances we take Serious every storm that could come upon our shore because of the devastation and even death that it can cause again we we focus first and foremost on saing our lives we deploy all the assets that Chief kid was talking about to make sure that regardless of what's going to happen over the next 4 48 to 72 hours Texas and local governments will have all the resources we need to Ure that life is protected in every corner of our state then we want to make sure we do everything we can to protect property and to keep power on and so we constantly work to improve what our response is learn from uh past storms take what we' learned from those storms and implement it and response to storms like Francine is there anything from any other particular STS that you're using to prepare for your response for this St so I missed your first party question any is there any particular storms that you're using as like guidance of what to do for curency so listen we've gone back a long way one storm that was the biggest uh was Hurricane Harvey uh and what the state of Texas did we partnered with Texas A&M and Chancellor sharp uh and we literally wrote an entire book on it how to respond not just to storms like that but to respond to storms in the future so we take information like that that's assembled in the aftermath of a storm tur it into a notebook that is a guide going forward then we constantly work to implement that guide going forward making adjustments along the way as we learn more about better ways to respond F let me just give you two easy examples one thing we we know that we want to minimize as much as possible is power outages there are two very effective tools that can easily be implemented that will reduce power outages one is uh vegetation removal uh that could impair power lines uh the other is to begin using composite poles as opposed to Wood poles or some other type of strategy that will be able to withstand wind even more so our power companies are implementing those uh newer Technologies and techniques to make sure that their customers will be far less likely to suffer from power outages