Winter weather preps, communication discussed at public safety meeting

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Freezing or near-freezing temperatures are expected all week, and on Monday, the city's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management (HESM) addressed winter preparedness at the monthly Public Safety Commission Meeting.

The 15-page presentation addressed preps, activation triggers, alert systems and streamlined operations regarding getting important information out to the public.

The meeting began with addressing the below actions taken to prepare equipment, supplies and staff for cold weather:

• Transportation and Public Works – conducted a field exercise to drive prescribed routes for road treatment, traffic signal exercise, and ordered de-icing materials.
• Austin Energy – conducted an incident command exercise for winter weather preparation
• Austin Public Libraries – Pre-identified warming center locations for extended hours
• Fleet Services – Trained staff to properly apply chains to vehicle tires
• Parks and Recreation Department – coordinating mass care sites with HSEM + staging Mission Ready Packages

The potential to lose power later this week is already top of mind for some.

"It's something that we're definitely think about," said Desiree Dumon. "We're stocking up, we bought a gas stove, have been stocking up on soup, ramen, non-perishable stuff like that to hold us over."

Bill Wilson, HESM's interim director, said the best way to get alerts directly from the city and county is to sign up for notifications at WarnCentralTexas.org, because that's the easiest way to inform people - neighborhood by neighborhood - about weather issues that are impacting them.

"Cellphones are great, but before we had cellphones there were landlines that went to everybody's house that were tied to addresses and it was easy [to send out emergency notifications]," Wilson said. "So there isn't a one-stop shop at the government level where I can go in and get everybody's listed address as it gets tied to cellphone numbers."

Of course, KXAN's First Warning Weather team and news staff will also relay important and/or emergency updates from the city. Monday's meeting mapped out ways staff are working to streamline communication with media partners to help answer news outlets' questions more quickly and efficiently disseminate any other information.

This includes having each public information officer, noted in the chart as a PIO, team up with a liaison staff member at relevant city departments who has on-the-ground knowledge of what's happening.

HSEM has also noted the most prominently spoken languages in Austin, and now has the capacity to translate the highest level of emergency alerts in the below 12 languages, according to the department's presentation.

• Spanish
• Chinese
• Vietnamese
• Arabic
• Korean
• French
• Hindi
• Nepali
• Swahili
• Pashto
• Burmese
• Tigrinya

The presentation mapped out plans for winter shelters and warning centers, you can view more of HESM's preparedness plans here.