It takes a village: Preparing for a hurricane takes a team effort, officials say

WESLACO — For a community that has been struck by consecutive natural disasters in recent years, the idea isn’t all that unfamiliar — the idea that disaster preparation takes a team effort between residents, and local and state officials.

But it was an idea that Weslaco city leaders wanted to remind people of as the city hosted its annual hurricane preparedness fair on Wednesday for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

“Help us help you. We can’t help you if you don’t help yourself. That is a critical point,” said Ricardo “Rick” Saldaña, emergency management coordinator for Hidalgo County.

“All of us doing this together, we can make a difference,” he said.

With the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season beginning on June 1, local officials wanted to illustrate how the strength of interagency relationships, along with an increase in regional thinking, helps the Rio Grande Valley’s resilience to natural disasters.

“What impacts the city is going to impact the county,” Weslaco emergency management coordinator and fire chief Antonio “Tony” Lopez said.

“The water has to come through the county, then through the city and vice versa. The water is in the city (and) we’re pushing it to the county,” Lopez said, speaking of the Valley’s network of drainage canals, detention ponds, ditches and more.

Both Lopez and Saldaña spoke of the mutual aid culture that ties the region’s first responder agencies together — from fire departments answering the call of far-off wildfires, to rescue crews responding to flood zones for water rescues.

“Hidalgo County has a great working relationship with all first responders. All it takes is one phone call and we’re all here,” Saldaña said.

“No matter where it is — on the east side, the west side, the south side or the north side. We’re here to take care of the constituents, to make sure that they can get out of harm’s way,” he said.

And that cooperative readiness extends beyond the four-county area to the state officials whose job it is to help bring relief — both in practical terms and in monetary ones — after a disaster has occurred.

“This is a true example of what the ‘whole community’ approach is,” John Ovalle, regional chief of the Texas Department of Emergency Management, said as he lauded the first responder network Valley officials have created.

Ovalle also echoed what Lopez and Saldaña said about the public-private partnership required to adequately prepare for a hurricane or other natural disaster.

“Preparedness, where does it start? It starts with us, at home,” Ovalle said.

That involves things like making sure municipal curbs are clear of debris, or that rural residents keep culverts free of illegal dumping.

But, as Barry Goldsmith, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Brownsville said, hurricane preparation also means understanding your personal risk, as well as the resiliency of your home.

“Everybody has a different risk level,” Goldsmith said.

“If you live in a colonia that’s brand new, your risk is off the charts for wind damage. If you live in a newer home that’s built to code, your risk is down here for most of the hurricanes,” he said.

However, homeowners can gauge — and improve — the resiliency of their homes by making sure roofs are properly anchored to walls, and that walls, in turn, are properly anchored to foundations, Goldsmith said.

And after a storm has hit? That’s when residents can best help TDEM as it lobbies for state and federal relief dollars.

Residents can help by filling out a damage survey on the TDEM website called iSTAT, Ovalle said.

“We need that information, we need that data to say, ‘Hey, FEMA, this is how big this incident is,’” Ovalle said.

Though it will be nearly another two weeks before meteorologists with NOAA announce the official hurricane forecast for the 2022 season, Goldsmith said there’s already a consensus building that this will be an above average year.

Regardless of how many storms make their way into the Gulf of Mexico, however, Goldsmith warned that “It only takes one storm to make your season.”

“Quiet or busy, it doesn’t matter. You need to prepare this year as if this is the year,” he said.

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