Travis County Commissioners Court
October 18, 2005
Item 3
3 is consider and take appropriate action on appropriate assistance in response to hurricane rita.
>> > good morning, judge, Commissioners, sherry fleming executive manager for Travis County health and human services. The department has submitted as backup for this item a report of our activities related to hurricane katrina and hurricane rita. And the only thing that I would add to that is we are continuing to see residents from the Texas coast who are impacted by -- who have been impacted by hurricane rita, and that could potentially cause the department to request that you extend the waiver of residency. I would ask that we not do that today. We are still collecting information and hopefully working with emergency services to determine as best we can when residents can return to that area. But as you know, hurricane rita was 30 days almost out from hurricane katrina, and our waiver was based on impacts from hurricane katrina. So I just wanted the court to be aware of that today. We continue to have a relationship with the capital area food bank that is providing resources for us to share with those persons who seek assistance through our programs. That relationship is -- will continue until October 31st. It's possible that it could be renewed past that time, but today we just don't know.
>> okay.
>> I’m pete baldwin, Travis County emergency management coordinator. Very quickly I wanted to tell you that the only information we have is off that first pay period, and that was approximately $190,000 that was attributed to -- off of payroll expenses and that was across the board. That included dcso, health department, everything else. We do not have --
>> what was that amount?
>> approximately 190,000. I don't have the exact figure. I grabbed the wrong pad coming out this morning. But it was right at 190,000. We do not have the information on that second pay period that will be out this week. We do have a meeting set up with fema to discuss katrina expenses this Thursday, which we will be then finalizing and starting to submit those expenses. A follow-up meeting for rita will be held -- they've got these two separated because the reimbursement is a little different on some of the participants in these so we will have two meetings. But that was all we had on the overall expenses. I have asked mike hindu with the sheriff's office to join us this morning because the sheriff's office whose been heavily involved not only in a lot of the law enforcement issues that we dealt with with shelters and with traffic, but they also had a very interesting deployment. And so I asked him to step in and share some of the expenses they've captured that we have not seen on our side yet. We've just been dealing primarily with payroll.
>> michael henby, Travis County sheriff's office. Just real briefly because I know you have a lot of things on your plate today and I’m sure I’ll be back before you to give a more formal presentation once our final team comes back in. They are due in this Thursday. We currently have 12 people still out of state assisting in cameron parish, louisiana, with efforts there. Having spent the last two weeks there myself, I can attest to the need in the area and that the lessons learned for as a community and Travis County were far aoe reaching. We were tasked to do things we have not done before and should we have a natural disaster or any other situation in our county that those would be applicable for. I would like to pass on the thanks of all the citizens of that parish that we got on a daily basis for our assistance in the area. I think in my 19 years with the sheriff's ofts, it's been probably within of the most rewarding situations to actually be able to assist people providing law enforcement services to handing out supplies to the people that needed them. And again, we'll come back to you with a more formal presentation that I think might shed some light on exactly what the individuals have gone through. Some of those individuals we are having to take care of here through health and human services in our county.
>> pete, could you just go back related to the reimbursements? I was at the auditor's conference last week and some county -- county, not cities, counties are in receipt of certain reimbursements related to one or both of the hurricanes. And from reading the paper, you give the sense the city of Austin has gotten something. Is that related more to the housing case?
>> yes, ma'am.
>> and we've not dealt with the things specific to Travis County where we might be [inaudible].
>> those areas, the houstons, the san antonios, Austins, dallas-fort worth areas, those large metropolitan hub areas that had primarily responsibility for the sheltering and housing and those costs, they have met with them previously and have got them set up where they could already -- I do know two or three weeks ago houston had already submitted expenses. So those large hub areas that were dealing primarily with housing and sheltering they did meet with them and start with them earlier.
>> so it's not that we were passed over.
>> no, ma'am.
>> we're in the queue and it's just getting processed.
>> yes, ma'am.
>> great, thanks, pete.
>> anything else on item 3?
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, October 18, 2005 5:21 PM