Fort Bend County prepares for Tropical Storm Cristobal

The Fort Bend County Office of Emergency Management has begun preparing for Tropical Storm Cristobal in case it comes into the region, Mark Flathouse, the county’s fire marshal and emergency management coordinator, said at the June 2 regular Commissioners Court meeting.

“Right now, we're looking at currently sometime about Saturday, Sunday [or] Monday, there is a potential,” he said. “We don't know until the next 48 hours of where it's going to land ... from south of Galveston Bay all the way to the other side of New Orleans to the panhandle of Florida,” he said.

More information about the storm’s path will come in the next two days, Flathouse said. He added the emergency management office has begun preparing to activate in a moment’s notice in case of an emergency.

If Cristobal comes to the region, the office must contend with the county’s COVID-19 testing sites, he said. The county has previously temporarily shut the sites down during inclement weather, according to a May 15 Fort Bend County press release.

“We have to look at the testing sites, the operations, and we have multiple equipment and materials that are at those sites that we're going to have to pull back and schedule, and we have staff to do that,” Flathouse said at the meeting.

Community Impact Newspaper reached out to the county for more information about how the county will coordinate emergency shelters, if needed, during the coronavirus pandemic and its related social distancing guidelines, but an answer was not immediately provided.

“It look[s] like we are off for a rainy start with the hurricane season,” Fort Bend County Judge KP George said at the meeting. “We believe in the next few days we are going to see heavy rainfall in pockets in Fort Bend County, so stay tuned."

In a 1 p.m. update from the National Hurricane Center, Cristobal was shown to be located near Campeche and Coatzacoalcos in Mexico with maximum sustained winds of 40 miles per hour. It is moving southwest at about 3 mph and will continue to move slowly southwest and south.