Two-minute impact
Jason Millsaps, executive director for the Montgomery County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, began the update by sharing that 79 residents are still in county shelters due to unsafe conditions at their homes.
The majority of those are within the East Montgomery County shelter in Splendora, and the individuals within shelters in other parts of the county will soon be consolidated into a single shelter to allow for the county to open disaster resource centers, or DRCs, he said.
Through the county’s distribution events, a total of 7,224 vehicles have received supplies such as water and meals ready to eat, or MREs. Millsaps said in total the county has distributed:
- 9,410 cases of water
- 20,416 bags of ice
- 7,718 cases of MREs
Millsaps said the county will now focus on debris removal and opening DRCs for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to set up and begin receiving and processing emergency claims from residents.
Precinct 3 Commissioner James Noack and Precinct 2 Commissioner Charlie Riley both expressed concerns over FEMA requiring 60-90 days in county buildings for the DRCs. Millsaps said the timeline was necessary to provide adequate response times for the federal agency, and DRCs opened from the May storms were still having heavy traffic.
“We're still seeing 60 to 70 people a day go in there to apply for benefits from [May storms], and that was almost 45 days after the flood,” Millsaps said. “They see a lot of traffic as they start to process their claims, and come in and sit down with FEMA and the Small Business Administration and all the other federal agencies that use the facility to put their agency assistance.”
Noack said he did not see a need for a DRC within Precinct 3, and affected residents would be able to go to one of the other three proposed DRC sites in the other precincts.
Official site locations will be published as FEMA approves the spaces located in the county.
Going forward
Vegetative debris removal is set to begin in the hardest-hit portions of the county on July 16, Millsaps said. According to data provided at the meeting, roughly 9,000 residents have signed up to have debris removed from their property; however, Millsaps said residents do not have to sign up for debris removal to receive it.
“There are 11 trucks in the county, and we are trying to get to 25 by the end of the week,” Millsaps said. “We had 65-70 people from CrowderGulf and Haggerty on the ground already.”
Debris removal has been segmented into 22 sections of the county, and Millsaps said he expects each section to take up to a week to clear debris. An interactive map will be created by the end of the week to allow residents to track where debris pickup is scheduled for their area, he said.
The county approved an additional funding amount for the debris pickup not to exceed $14.6 million, but reimbursement from FEMA is expected, Millsaps said.
