Dallas City leaders laid out their action plan for the incoming wintry mix and said they are ready for whatever comes.
City officials held a news conference on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the roles of different departments as they gear up to respond to various needs. They said it’s all hands-on deck.
The city manager, police chief, fire chief, and other department heads said they have a plan to keep people warm, meet safety needs, and maintain roadways.
“Our teams have been closely monitoring all of the different forecasts at the national level, local level, to make sure that we activate our winter weather operations plan,” said City Manager Kim Tolbert.
Kevin Oden, Director of Emergency Management and Crisis Response, said the emergency operations center will be activated Saturday morning at 7 a.m. He said the city department leaders have had a very productive 48 hours and are now in a “pre-incident” posture.
Oden told reporters that Dallas Police and Dallas Fire Rescue are fully staffed and operating under severe weather protocol.
“The Transportation and Public Works [Department] has crews that are being pre-positioned with resources in order to scout bridges, overpasses, and prepare their ice force teams,” said Oden.
Once precipitation begins, Gus Khankarli, Director of Transportation and Public Works, said they’re prepared to deploy about 50 sand trucks.
“Then we’re going to be watching it until the temperatures starts dropping,” said Khankarli. “And then when it starts going into an icing condition, that’s when we’re going to have to start looking at the ability to get to those places and start sanding operations.”
Khankarli said crews will work 12-hour shifts around the clock while severe weather is in effect.
Oden said utility and infrastructure partners that include Encore, Atlas Energy, and Dallas Water Utilities all have crews staged and ready to respond to any infrastructure outages during the event.
The sanitation department and city facilities department have all adjusted their operations to maintain essential services throughout the weekend.
The citywide plan also includes the unhoused. The city, along with Austin Street Center and partners, will open a warming shelter at Fair Park. It is expected to unlock at 4 p.m. Friday and remain open throughout the freezing weather event.
David Stucker, Director of Government Grant and Administration, explained how they’ll prepare beginning Thursday morning.
“That’s going to involve getting the building open, cleaned and then at about 11 o’clock they’ll start delivering supplies, cots, etcetera to stock the building,” he said.
Stucker told NBC 5 they’re prepared to house roughly 900 people at the Fair Park facility before moving on to backup facilities.
“I would say the most important thing is everybody knows what their role is, Stucker said.
Tolbert said ongoing communication between departments will be a key component of success over the next several days.
“Planning for events like this do not start today. We have had significant amount of time over the way we work on our emergency operations plans to look at ways that we do this throughout the year. So, when we face an event like what is being forecasted now, then we just are really pretty much implementing that plan.”
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