Travis County Commissioners Court
February 6, 2007
Item 17
Then let's go to -- the item involving the Travis County expo center. And we -- facilities need to head this way. There is facilities. And the -- in the person of roger el khoury. 17. Consider and take appropriate action on request from capital area council of governments to authorize free use of exposition center for regional weapons of mass destruction exercise.
>> good morning, pete baldwin. Let me introduce juliet brown. She has been working with us over the past couple of years on our task force. Today the agenda item before you is to ask for use of the expo center for a regional interoperatability exercise. For the past three or four years we have been expending money, not only in Travis County, but within the 10 county areas, those to our east and west. We have said that we have interoperatability that we are able to communicate with those counties in the event that we need to go there to provide mutual aid or they need to come here to provide mutual aid. This is a functional exercise that will actually test that capability. What we are looking for is a space where we can park some fairly large communications vehicles and actually test our capability. With that, let me turn it over to juliet.
>> sure, good morning.
>> good morning.
>> welcome.
>> did you have a question? It looked like you were. I didn't want to cut you off.
>> I can wait.
>> okay.
>> I am have three or four, knowing me.
>> I wanted to thank judge Biscoe for agreeing to bring this topic before the court this morning. As pete said, we are at the point where the plan that's have been developed over the past couple of years are in need of being tested. The governor's division of emergency management has a state-wide program to test communications and operabilitity in each of the four councils across the state. It's our turn. The exercise is February 21st and 22nd. Again as pete said we are needing a location that would allow us to -- to off load a lot of equipment and have the freedom to test, bring large vehicles and have staging area, if you will, for a mock incident command post.
>> where has this exercise been conducted in the other --
>> good question.
>> jurisdictions.
>> the scope of the exercise has changed. The program actually began in '06, early '06 and there were -- there were about three exercises conducted in other parts of the state before this change in scope. The change in scope relates to the focus just on communications and interoperatability. A full scale exercise in regards to communications. The most recent one that has occurred since the change in scope, just prior to ours was in houston. They used the reliant center.
>> do we know whether the state made any training facility money available?
>> yes, I know the answer is no. We had asked very early on in this process, actually, both mike and pete were at -- at an early planning meeting back in October where the question was asked for any kind of funding to support the exercise in terms of backfill items, pieces of equipment, what do I want to say, expandable items that might need to be replaced if they are used during the full scale piece. The answer was no.
>> part of the exercise will be indoors. The other partly be outdoors?
>> yes. Primarily most of the exercise will occur outdoors where the large vehicles are and the team members that come with the vehicles will likely stay near them. There's a pretty large staff from the national emergency response and rescue training center, which is the organization that's conduct conducting the exercise, nertzy. I am sure they have have about 10 to 15 staff members out at this location. They will want an indoor facility to put their stuff and set out their equipment, their plans and their paperwork.
>> so the facility is available on the 21st, I understand. But part of it is booked on the 22nd?
>> that's correct. Booked on the banquet hall. The rest of the facilities are available. I believe when I talked to ms. Brown, a couple of offices on the
>> [indiscernible] west and north of the nearly is available for the operation of -- I believe that was receivable.
>> I guess part of the stadium?
>> the main arena it's open. No event there, too. But my understanding was that all of the work on the outside and offices they need a couple of offices and I think
>> [indiscernible] will do it. If they want to use those in the main arena we will work with them, sure.
>> does the show barn have air and heat?
>> the offices does. But not the show barn. Only the offices have air condition and -- that's window stuff.
>> air and heat, I mean, this time of year. It's cool. Summer it's got a lot of hot air.
>> [laughter] how many people do you envision showing up for this event?
>> we are actually in the process of surveying that exact question of the jurisdictions that plan to participate. Because the nersy folks need to know that as well. We have asked each of the 10 county eo scrs to stand up. About six city eoc's that would like to stand up during the exercise as well. That doesn't mean all of them need to be there. It's a little tricky to target the number, because this is a mock staging area. At a minimum we would like representatives with equipment from at least the three different types of radio systems that we have in our region. Vhf, 800-megahertz and the 800 analog. 900, excuse me, 900. So I know for a fact that we will have folks that represent those different types of radio systems. That's why we are doing the survey, we are going to release it later on today.
>> Commissioner, let me give you a brief example. Instead of having a full scale. What we actually bring in every piece of apparatus. Part of the inject or part of the request might be that -- that Austin-Travis County and surrounding communities are -- are absolutely overcome by whatever this disaster is. Can you find me 10 additional fire trucks? And so -- so the call goes out to fayetteville or to fayette county. And says: can you send me any fire trucks? They say yes we can send three. The testing is can we contact fayette county, not that fayette county would actually send those resources up here. But it would actually be can we test that, so how many people will be there at that actual what we call a command post? Will be -- it will vary during the day. But we will probably have, I would say we will probably be between 20 and 30 maybe up as high as 50. But most of them are going to be involved at the communication. Mike, are you all going to bring you all's trailer if.
>> that's correct. Mike
>> [indiscernible] with the sheriff's office. We have a slight different twist on this. Expressed an interest of actually going fully functional for the sheriff's office. We will actually be deploying units to this site as well as out of county sites to test our capacity. We understand that some agencies weren't able to do that. But sheriff hamilton expressed an interest in making sure that we are fully tested, you know, this is a good time of the year for us. On the heels of ice storms, we are coming up on hurricanes and floods and those things that affect us yearly. And we are committed to doing that. It worked out plans to make sure that that happens.
>> what kind of impact will this have, if any, on the adjacent neighborhood community out there? Is that part of the consideration or --
>> the traffic would be -- the -- so much less than -- in fact the fish fry will probably have more traffic than what we have out there. We will have some large vehicles. Our communications vehicles. But there will be no lights and sirens, no actual play as far as visible to the public. There won't be anyone dressed out if full closed suits running around or anything. It's strictly a communications testing that interoperatability.
>> okay.
>> will weather have any effect, I mean, if you have just a really lousy day, this stuff is set up kind of like hey whatever it is, we have got to be out there.
>> it won't be pleasant, but they have to play in it.
>> again one of our things, I know that having been involved in the planning stage ever this, wants to know what's going to happen, when it's going to be. Unfortunately from our perspective we would rather them just throw it at us, we will deal with it. We don't just get to respond on nice sunny days. We can't test the capability of our individuals if we don't get some realistic circumstances. To address your question on the arena, again that's one of the great things about having the expo center as a Travis County asset, because of it's sheer size and proximity, we can hold the exercises with the least impact. We have used the parmer events center, they do have an impact on parking situations, traffic flow, things of that nation. This is an ideal site, again I'm glad that Travis County has it in their arsenal of items that we can use.
>> move approval, judge.
>> second.
>> why don't we -- let's show them the show barn and whatever is available in the stadium and let them choose.
>> okay.
>> basically. -- we -- this is part of a -- of a sort of state mandated regional training.
>> okay.
>> let's make sure that the fayette county judge brings everything that he's got. Send that message over there to him.
>> let's let the caldwell judge bring everything, too.
>> oh, yeah.
>> the motion is to make it available and wave the fee basically. Any more discussion? I guess after the exercise, remind the state that we picked up the cost. And I'm sure there will be a year two regional exercise.
>> hopefully.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you very much.
>> thank you, thank you all, ms. Brown, good to have you here.
>> thank you. If joe gieselman is nearby, where don't he go to the campo item. And if somebody in my office would try to reach aisd by phone, if they are not coming we can approve the proclamation in number two, just send it to them.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, February 7, 2007 8:20 AM