Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, November 30, 2010,
Item 16E
>> now, mr. Hobby, 16-e is review and approve requests regarding grant proposals, applications, contracts and permissions to continue: and e is new contract with the Texas department of public safety to receive department of homeland security, urban area security initiative program, resources for the creation of a Travis County chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, explosive strike team coordinator that will enhance the existing program within the emergency services department.
>> good morning, pete balanced in, Travis County emergency management board nateer.
we wanted to come before you and tell you that we have been offered a grant through the urban area security initiative.
uasi for short.
to fund this position.
I will let chief warren give you a little bit more in detail, but I want to let you know it would be for a full-time equivalent person up through the end of the grant, which it currently stands at July of 2012.
with that let me turn it over to chief warren and let you run through a couple of slides and give you some background.
>> I’m gary warren, the fire chief of esd's three and nine.
I’m also involved with the hazmat team for Travis County.
and I know you don't get a lot of exposure to the hazmat team, so I would like to run through a quick presentation to let you know what's been going on.
mostly these are just the highlights of the last year.
but we have a lot of activities that are a lot less exciting than these.
one thing we did just this month was weapons of mass destruction drills that we did in November.
you can see our hazmat team members going forward to what was a drug lab house that needed to be reconnaissanced.
and we have the Travis County swat team, sheriff's department swat team with us.
we worked together on this along with the Travis County e.m.s., who also had hazmat medic there's to help us.
here you see the team members with a remote camera, video camera as part of the reconnaissance.
back at the command post the video shows on a tv screen and they're able to show all the suspicion items that they come across so that the people back at the trailer with the technical books can look up what's going on and tell them what kind of dangers they're getting into.
here you see the hazmat team members with the monitoring devices that came from the capcog homeland security grants that these monitoring devices tell us wherever we're in the poisonous atmosphere or if there's radioactive materials around that could harm people.
and there you see up close the video camera that was used in the drill and also a piece of detection tape hanging from the helmet.
if any certain chemicals change the colors of those swabs on the side of that piece of paper it lets us know that there's other hazards in the area.
and r.
and here's back at the command post the members debriefing.
you can see the hazmat team, Austin-Travis County e.m.s.
and the swat team all working together there.
also if you remember, the echelon building, the hazmat team was the primary first responders for that when the plane flew into the echelon building.
you can see there those are Travis County members there at the very beginning of the incident, getting organized and getting ready to help with the rescue operation.
and of course there's the other side of the building that was much more spectacular with all the fire.
and then here just on October the 11th we had a very interesting and notable incident.
there's a new trend across the world where people are committing suicide with hazardous chemicals now.
and it's become very, very popular.
it was started in japan.
many people do that in japan now, but it hasn't been that prevalent here.
and as far as we know the first one to happen in Texas happened in October where a young person poured bathroom chemicals into a bucket, select chemicals, and produced hydrogen sulfide gas, which killed them.
but as you can see, they put signs on the windows inside their car because the car is very airtight, they put signs so that anybody that came across it wouldn't inadvertently get involved in pt.
and these are the type of signs, even to the extent of saying call for the hazmat team, one breath can kill you instantly.
that was very considerate, but it's a new thing for us to be concerned about.
probably the first one in Texas from what I understand there's been one in Williamson county since then.
so I guess it's the coming thing.
it's one more thing that our as matt team was able to identify quickly and I’m proud to say they analyzed it, did risk benefit, were able to go ahead then and break out a window, open the door, get the victim out and started resuscitation within 28 minutes, which I think is really good, considering the circumstances.
and of course, there's the car after they got the door open.
now, part of the situation the hazmat team is in, though, it is primarily a volunteer organization in the sense that the es d's contribute those firefighters from all the different esd's and some esd's contribute money.
so it's somewhat of a volunteer organization.
the instrumentation has all come from grants from the homeland security taskforce and then it's out of four esd's, four, three, six and two, all the equipment response from there.
and they work on three different shifts.
so when you add up all that complexity, it's really hard to keep that team coordinated, educated and ready to go.
and we have not had a central figure be able to provide that coordination, and that's what we're asking for here today.
>> this is federal money.
>> yes, sir.
>> the grant will cover the total expenses through 2012.
>> the end of July -- July 31st or 30th of 2012, yes, sir.
>> what's expected of Travis County at that time?
>> there is no sustainment or carry on.
it is not required.
I think that would be something that in the next year and a half, two years that between this individual, if we get hired on, and some of the rest of us, we evaluate and see if that position is actually needed.
if that would be, then we would come back and that would be a decision for the court at some point in time.
but the acceptance of this grant does not make us continue it at all.
we have no commitment to it beyond July, end of July.
>> but our expectation would be that if it's beneficial, productive, we would continue it.
>> we would probably come back and make that recommendation, yes, sir.
>> questions, comments from the court?
>> what kind of relationship do we have currently with a.f.d.
and do they have similar resources?
>> they have their own hazmat team.
and they are backup to us.
when we're not able to respond to our obligation through the homeland security taskforce plan, response plan.
so they are our backups in the different counties that we're supposed to respond to.
and there are actually four teams in central Texas, one in hays county, Williamson county, Austin and Travis County.
>> and I might add, this is also -- would assist -- this coordinator would also assist with tnr in their hazmat.
>> mr. Gatlin, any additional comments?
>> I’m just here available for any questions.
>> do we have any questions for mr. Gatlin?
dr. Ken?
>> the chief of Texas homeland security is governor rick perry, who is next chief of homeland security besides governor?
>> he's acting director right now.
his name is nim kidd.
he is the director of the Texas division of emergency management, of which handles all of the homeland security issues.
>> can you spell it, please?
>> nimm kidd.
>> where is his office?
>> he is officed up with the d.p.s.
headquarters on north lamar.
>> oh, d.p.s.
he's there?
>> yes.
>> name kidd?
>> kidd.
>> thank you very much.
>> thank you.
do we have a motion yet, ms. Porter?
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> we have one now.
>> any discussion on the motion?
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
thank y'all very much.
sorry to keep you waiting so long.
by the way, we will take up item 19 next and then take up item 23 and 24.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, November 30, 2010 2:55 PM
