Montgomery County launches 8 digital billboards to prepare residents for hurricane season

The Montgomery County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, in partnership with Clear Channel Outdoor, launched a countdown to the 2023 hurricane season via digital billboards May 11.

Montgomery County Judge Mark Keough and Clear Channel representative Lee Vela said the billboards will create direct communications to residents.

“When we have another incident, which we will, then we will have protocols in place to go ahead put up messages to the traveling public regarding shelter in place, evacuation, whatever the county needs to do,” Vela said in a news conference May 11. “These billboards make it available to them to be able to do that at no cost to the county.”

According a news release May 8, a total of eight digital billboards in Conroe and Willis display a countdown clock to the start of hurricane season, which starts in June. After June 1, the billboard will switch to give public service announcements or general reminders for residents of Montgomery County to take precautions, plan and prepare.

“It's that time, isn't?” Keough said during the conference. “It's not if; it's when. We don’t know when, but we do know the general time in which hurricanes or tropical depressions might come. It's between June 1 and the end of November. Like Lee said ... that it is upon us in just a few days.”

Keough urged county residents to not wait to prepare for a hurricane.

“Go out now and get all those supplies you need,” he said. “Start doing it right now, and you'll be much happier.”