Travis County Commissioners Court
March 29, 2005
Citizen Communication
Citizens communication is next. This item is intended to give residents an opportunity to address the court on any matter not on the agenda. For up to 3 minutes. [indiscernible] baldwin is first, second is marie ingram. Mr. Bald win, good morning.
>> good morning, pete baldwin, Travis County services emergency coordinator. I want to give an overview of the storms last Friday night. We've had numerous calls inquiring about what actually happened and what will happen. As a brief overview, approximately 10, 10:30 Friday night, we were under a severe thunderstorm warning. We had a system moving from west to east, and our first report of any damage came out in the lidig area east of manor, that's where we first started responding, in contact with tcso, the fire departments, also t.n.r. Working out there. It wasn't until Saturday morning that we realized that there was a considerable amount of damage on the west side. And we are still finding pockets of where there has been damage, hudson bend area was hit and I just found out this morning that there was a fairly significant damage out in the Briarcliff area. We will be sending some crews out did take a look at that. The bottom line is in the litig area, national weather service surveyed that, they think it's probably an f 0 to an f 1 tornado that was skipping across, it was on the ground very short period of time. Basically it followed litig road right down the path. Fortunately most of the structures that were damaged were either unoccupied or outbuildings. But in the area we did have five single family residences, what we considered major damage, that would be roof shingles, things, large portions missing and three with minor damage. However, when the hudson bend area, this is the information that we had as of late yesterday afternoon. Red cross going back out this morning on the west side to do some more damage assessment for us. But on the hudson bend area, we actually had two major, those were mobile homes. 12 minor single family residences, and minor means shingles are missing, windows are blown out, but structurally they are sound. We had over 30 mobile homes and that happened because the -- the system actually moved right through a -- an r.v. Park out there. Now, what I want to briefly explain to you, though, is that we were getting calls regarding whether or not we would be submitting a disaster declaration for the judge to sign and the court to authorize at a later date. At this stage of the game, the damage is not that extensive. Now, we will get calls on saying my house got beat up, what do you mean not extensive? Disaster declarations to receive any outside help are based upon the amount of uninsured loss. And that is on a per capita basis. The good news about it is the Texas has grown and our economy has been sustained. The bad news is thousand that dollar figure is somewhere up in the $20 million of uninsured loss that we have to come up with to go for a presidential. For us to sign a local disaster declaration basically means we have exceeded all of our local resources, of which at this point in time we have not. There's really not much there on state. Now we will be taking into be the the number of homes with minor, major, we can request an sba designation, however in past floods in the 2000 floods, 2002, we received very, very little interest in those loans. Most of the dang that we are seeing has been insured. I wanted to make sure we were all on the same page on that. We can sign a disaster declaration, it's not going to open any faucets of money. It's basically a call saying we have exceeded our resources, with that I will ask if there's any questions of --
>> yeah. I have a couple of questions. In the lig area, I understand the majority of property owners, they were uninsured. My question is when will a necessary assessment be taken to get the full extent money-wise of the actual damage that was experienced out there in lidig? We can go wheelchair and take a look at --
>> I really wouldn't want you to. I haven't heard any dollar figures, but several properties that were severely damaged.
>> like five that we considered had major damage out in that area. At least two were unoccupied at the time, nobody living there permanently. We will go back out and take a look at that, to see if there's any assistance there. Once again, we are looking at county-wide, so we will have to combine all of those figures, we will take another figure.
>> okay. Thanks. Any other questions?
>> thank you.
>> thank you. This here is on number 14, right? Ms. Macafee, 14 or citizens communication.
>> citizens communication, okay. Ms. Macafee is next. I apologize for not being a little better prepared here. Our gardens are gone, needless to say we don't know if we are coming or going because of the hailstorm. I would like to discuss what's going to be in executive session here today. Arterial a. I didn't know about last week, so I missed that and I apologize for not being here then. But I would just like to propose that on arterial a that there be some -- some look into expanding giles road into a bigger thoroughfare. From what I have heard and seen, going through the landfills, it's just so problematic that all that will be -- that you all have to go through, negotiation with the landfills, with all of the issues with the community, I feel like that issue has not been addressed we have talked about it, but it has not gone anywhere. I don't know if it's -- if we are able to get with some developers and he-- and you know put this on the table, but I think as far as a money issue with the county, what it's going to cost, that this could be a viable alternative. I would like to put that on the table to be looked at.
>> okay. Thank you.
>> anybody else for citizens communication, whether you signed in or not?
>> good morning, my name is trek english, I also would like to comment on arterial a. I don't think our neighborhood should be punished because arterial -- springdale road is too small. I think to -- to give us some relief for their traffic that is now -- now travelling springdale road, it's one thing, but to give us the -- the four to six-lane road all of the traffic just -- just a few hundred feet away, and in the process giving us expansion of landfills, I think it's too difficult and too harsh of a punishment for one neighborhood. And then in this case it would be three of them, because all of the chimney hills neighborhood are going to be affected, complain tall pacific, I don't know exactly what that is called, springdale heights, going to be affected, our neighborhood is going to be affected, of course all of the people pioneer crossing are going to be affected by the expansions of landfills. I don't -- I’m going to another hearing, I was at one this morning at the capitol, so I have been testifying all morning already. But I -- I wanted to tell you that you keep ignoring us on what's happening at these landfills. This was just this weekend. Actually I will let you see that one. I have several. I wasn't really --
>> those are the ones that were e-mailed to us.
>> oh, okay.
>> there's more, more, hundreds of them. I can show you other shots. It's just a carnage. This was supposed to have been this fantastic channelization that was supposed to clean up and make it look real pretty and whatever else. They told you that they would do. And they are not doing it. And in case you don't know, they are trying to take away our contested case hearing rights at the legislature. It's basically no contested case hearing, period, if you have a -- an amendment, if you have an expansion, unless you have a brand new landfill, basically you don't have a contested case hearing except -- it's up in the air right now as to whether or not we will even know by the end of the session whether -- when we get a -- we may get a public hearing that's about it. Contested case hearing is trying to be removed from us. I’m telling you that what I’m here for is to ask you to please do not dpoasht to give them an expansion in exchange for arterial a. If a piece of land is being taken and a piece of land is giving us one thing. But if they give a little piece of land and you give them that 12 years to 15 years, I don't think that you -- I don't think that you are protecting us at all when you do this. I think you are harming us. I don't think most of our neighborhoods would be really happy if they were also getting 12 years worth of -- of landfill [buzzer sounding] I think you need to although at blue goose to go straight, keep going towards cameron road and I know that tusk ny and the first part of arterial a are right in line. If you put a pencil on the map they are right in line something could be done that way. All that we have to do is go through the field, there won't even be any creeks or whatever. You need to look at alternatives before you just give them what they want. We know what they want. I really appreciate it. Thank you for listening to us this morning.
>> this is what landfill now?
>> b.f.i. Landfill. [indiscernible] [inaudible - no mic]
>> we had a whole series of those e-mailed to us on Monday. From b.f.i. Off the b.f.i. Site actually.
>> I don't think you got them. You only got three of them, looks like 20. There were garbage off on the side and into -- on to the rocks. It was really bad.
>> thank you, ms. English.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Wednesday, March 30, 2005 12:50 PM