LESSONS FROM DOLLY

It has only been a few weeks since Ms. Dolly made her presence known in Deep South Texas, but already the lessons she left behind are apparent. On July 23, 2008, this Category 2 storm with an innocent name hovered over our region for nearly 12 hours, dumping between 18 inches to 25 inches in some spots. Hidalgo, Cameron and Willacy counties sustained millions of dollars in damage. The regional drainage system reached capacity and buckled at weak points, water entered into thousands of homes, and widespread power outages persisted for more than a week.
Yet our jurisdictions came together as one responding agency to assist our residents. Tropical events and natural disasters do not respect jurisdictional boundaries, and neither should we in our response efforts to it. In Hidalgo County, with the help of the state and volunteer organizations, we opened 13 shelters for nearly 3,300 people and distributed hundreds of thousands of bottles of water, bags of ice, and ready-to-eat meals at three point-of-distribution sites. Volunteers and employees at our phone bank took and triaged an estimated 5,000 calls for service. Also, a relatively new concept was tested and found to work: “public works strike teams.” These crews from as far away as Lufkin, San Antonio and Corpus Christi and as close as the city of McAllen pumped and vacuumed an estimated 415 million gallons of water from homes, streets and agricultural land. Above all else, there were no deaths and no serious injuries.
Today as I write this column, de-watering operations are about 95 percent complete, and crews have picked up more than 260,000 cubic yards of brush and wind-blown or water-logged debris. Another achievement is that after a week of aerial spraying covering almost 1 million acres and ground vector control, the mosquito population has significantly declined. On the other hand, if all the paperwork ahead is Mt. Everest, then we’re only at base camp. We’ve got a long expedition ahead of us, but thank God we’ve got a good team to carry the load.
We are only now beginning to take a look at what went right and what actions we could improve upon, but immediately some lessons resonate with me that I find applicable to emergency management and the craziness that is county government. Whether you are from a large urbanized county like Hidalgo or a smaller rural county like Willacy, remember these things: 1) You are only as good as those you surround yourself with; 2) training and open dialogue get results; and 3) Always stand up yourself, and others will follow. These lessons from Dolly can be applied to whatever we as public servants do for our constituents.
As the newest elected member of the South Texas County Judges and Commissioners Association, it won’t only be me working to get the voice of South Texas heard up in the chambers of Austin. President Debbie Gonzales Ingalsbe, Hays County commissioner, and First Vice President Roger Galvan, Calhoun County commissioner, are great leaders, and no doubt I will call on them for guidance. In addition, when you elected me, you also elected my staff. We will be working closely with you on important issues to us all: curtailing unfunded mandates, finding creative ways to finance transportation infrastructure and build healthy economies, expanding workforces, and reaching higher educational attainment levels. Please call on us anytime at 956-318-2600, visit my blog www.judgejd.com or visit our newly designed Web site at www.co.hidalgo.tx.us.
In my year and a half as county judge of one of the fastest-growing counties in the nation