HOUSTON – Emergency officials held a drill at Reliant Center designed to prepare them for the next big storm to hit the Houston area.
Officials call it a worst-case situation. A hurricane hits and Houston TranStar fails. The backup emergency location fails and now county leaders scramble for a third makeshift location.
"This is assuming we lost TranStar for some reason, which we certainly hope never happens. We lost the backup, and now we're at Reliant," Harris County Judge Ed Emmet said.
We all remember Hurricane Ike and how it devastated the area. Now Harris County officials are doing all they can to prepare for our next storm.
Even though it may be just an exercise, they treated it like the real thing. Emergency officials simulated a disaster with a room at Reliant as their emergency hurricane headquarters.
They used the event to test their communication skills and their response and recovery times. County leaders said they need to be ready for anything.
"We can't always assume what happened before will happen again. We will never face a storm like Ike again. It may come at a different angle, different areas of the county may be affected, the power may be impacted in a different way," Emergency Management Coordinator Mark Sloan said.
"You can never say anything is always when dealing with an emergency, because you just don't know," said Emmet
County leaders are preparing, and they said residents need to prepare too. If you don't have a hurricane survival kit, now is the time to get one.