Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, March 29, 2011,
Item 6
Number 6 is approve proclamation and receive certificate declaring Travis County as a storm-ready community.
mr. Baldwin is here with guests.
whereas each year brings probably for severe weather to Travis County.
whereas large portions of Travis County can be devastated by flooding, tornadoes, hail storms, straight-line winds, wildfire and other severe emergencies.
whereas the national weather service designed the storm-ready program to reduce the potential for disasterous wealth-related complications and strengthens response plans.
whereas Travis County has met the national weather service requirements to be recognized as a storm-ready county, and whereas the Travis County residents will be better prepared knowing they have the best possible chance of being warned before a weather disaster strikes.
now therefore be it proclaimed that the Travis County Commissioners court does hereby proclaim Travis County storm ready.
I move approval.
>> second.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners court.
we appreciate you indulging us.
our guests got caught in a little construction on i-35.
>> not because of a morning storm --
>> well, and then, of course, the way Austin drives any time it rains.
all those put together, but we appreciate you putting up with us.
at the table with me is paul urr with the national weather service.
he is a warning coordination meteorologist out of new braunfels.
next to him is joe, chief meteorologist out of national national weather service and the assistant emergency management coordinator and patrice ricin.
we went through this process of applying, went through certification with on site visits and met the requirements of the national weather service to be declared a storm ready county.
and I'm going to let -- turn it over to paul or joe and let them explain exactly what some of the requirements were to be declared.
>> welcome to both of you.
>> thank you and appreciate you hosting this presentation.
the national weather service started the storm ready certification in 1999 in tulsa, oklahoma.
the main concept behind its program is to make sure that communities go above and beyond being able to not only receive information about severe weather but also be able to monitor the weather, be able to pass on the dissemination of these warnings to the general public.
and there's criteria that have to be met according to size of the community.
Travis County being as large as it is, they are at the highest level.
and not only is it the requirement to meet the specific criteria, they have to have backups to monitor the weather and Travis County by far met all of these criteria.
as you know, weather is by far one of the most critical things we have to deal with.
90% of the presidential declarations of disaster are weather related.
each year the united states gets 10,000 thunderstorms, 2500 floods, 1,000 tornadoes and here in this part of south central Texas flooding is by far the biggest danger we have.
and so we try to make sure that the communities are ready not only to receive this information and warnings but also to disseminate the warnings to the general public.
and anything else you want to add, paul?
>> the one thing, this is a three-year certification and typically after the end of three years we'll visit back with the county and go through the application and make sure nothing has changed, and so it's a recurring thing.
we hope this will be a recurring certification that happens every three years.
we provide the county or the community, whoever becomes storm ready, with a couple of signs they can reproduce and put them up basically wherever they would like across the county.
be able to advertise to the population that they have gone the extra mile.
from a meteorologist standpoint, from a weather service standpoint, having a community that is so proactive in being able to know what happens when our warnings go out, we know they don't fall upon deaf ears, they go into the community and they disseminate it to the rest of the area.
we're happy to have partners like the office of emergency management with Travis County here to be able to make sure that when we are doing our work at our office, that that information goes out and we get warnings to everybody.
>> so if that's actually -- I know this is for Travis County, but the impact of what you do affects other surrounding counties.
is this just an individual county deal as far as being recognized.
>> yes.
>> but we also impact adjacent counties.
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> it's very important that all communities in the area are ready to deal with this.
>> exactly.
>> travis being one of the few in our area that is storm ready really speaks loudly of the dedication and vision of having this program replaced.
>> thank you.
>> we appreciate the opportunity to collaborate with you.
and we appreciate the recognition.
>> yeah.
>> we will order this to pete and his staff.
>> yes.
>> we receive the credit and praise but they do the hard, would.
that is the way it's supposed to be though, pete, isn't it?
>> if you say so, judge.
>> all in favor.
that passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you all very much.
>> thank you very much for your work and service
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.
