LA FERIA — Parents held their children’s hands as they walked down the halls of La Feria High School and into a cafeteria that now resembled a makeshift clinic complete with scales and uniformed military staff with clipboards and laptops.
The annual Operation Lone Star is underway and will continue until Friday.
Operation Lone Star is an emergency preparedness exercise used to promote readiness among health and human services in the event of a disaster.
The training helps the Department of Health and Human Services prepare for future emergencies while simultaneously providing free health care to local communities.
Operation Lone Star began Monday morning at various locations in South Texas and is set to continue until Friday afternoon.
There are two locations in Cameron County, two in Hidalgo County, one in Starr County and one in Webb County.
According to local public information officer, Claudia Soto, the operation had been in Brownsville for the past 18 years, but this year a second location was opened at La Feria High School.
Last year, the operation provided medical assistance to more than 8,000 people across South Texas.
Monday, the La Feria location had seen about 170 people compared to Brownsville, which had more than 500 participants.
Soto said it is going to take some time bringing in people to La Feria considering it is still a new location.
Federal, state and local health and human service agencies united alongside U.S. and Texas Military Forces, including one military medical unit from Missouri, to form one of the largest public health exercises in the nation.
Services provided include immunizations for children, diabetic screening, blood pressure screening, hearing and vision screening and sport physicals.
Funding for the operation comes from local and state Department of State Health Services.
Those interested in their services are not asked to bring any type of documents or forms of identification with them.
“We don’t require any ID,” Soto said. “Our mission is to save lives and in reality, in an emergency, we are not going to be looking for an ID.”
Soto said the only type of records they might need would be a child’s immunization records.
