HCOHSEM 2020 Annual Report

• The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) verifies two Covid-19 cases in Harris County.
• Harris County issues a Disaster Declaration for the public health emergency.
• The City of Houston cancels the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

United Memorial Medical Center, the 5th largest healthcare provider in the Greater Houston Area, opens the first free drive-thru Covid-19 testing site in Houston. The site had capacity for 2,000 tests per day. Two tents were set up at the site. Staff in protective gear screened individuals and those with symptoms were directed to the second test for testing. Test results were made available within 24 hours.

Harris County reports its first Covid-19 death. A second Covid-19 death is reported in the Greater Houston Area.

Governor Abbott issues statewide mandates closing bars, restaurants, gyms, and schools in Texas.

Harris County issues a Stay at Home, Work Safe Order for the City of Houston and all other cities within Harris County. The order went into effect at 11:59 pm on March 24, 2020. Similar orders are implemented throughout the country to help slow the spread of the virus. The measure restricts gatherings and leaving home unless the individual’s job is essential for the health and safety of the community.

Places of worship are considered non-essential, must close, and may choose to provide services online. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency provides a list of essential employees and businesses.

As area employers prepare to reopen safely, the guidelines recommend actions such as staggering employee start times, providing short breaks for workers to wash their hands, identifying a designated safety monitor to oversee safety protocols, and screening employees for symptoms of COVID-19. Other recommendations include sanitizing equipment, recording attendance to allow for contact tracing in the event of an outbreak, and continued use of facemasks and social distancing measures.

Phased reopening of Texas pauses - bars shut down again and restaurants roll back to 50% capacity.

Texas Governor Abbott issues an executive order requiring face coverings in public spaces for counties with 20 or more positive COVID-19 cases on July 2, 2020. A proclamation is also issued giving mayors and county judges the ability to impose restrictions on outdoor gatherings of over 10 people.

As COVID-19 cases continue to increase in the county, a joint public health order is issued requiring all public and non-religious private schools in Harris County to remain closed to in-person instruction until at least September 8th. Due to the uncertainty of public health conditions, many local school districts develop an online-only instruction policy for the first weeks of the new school year.

Harris County Public Health (HCPH) continues to vaccinate Tier-1 and 2 groups per the Texas COVID-19 Vaccination plan. Those who work to protect the community and residents at long-term healthcare facilities, those who are at high risk of developing complications from COVID-19, and first responders/essential workers are also vaccinated.

It has been said many times: 2020 was a unique year.

In most years, the historic hurricane season alone would have been more than enough to make 2020 a noteworthy year. Covid-19, the longest and most complex activation in the history of the Harris County Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Management, changed our reality forever.

It also underscored our value as a coordination point during an emergency response. Our team’s leadership worked with other emergency management agencies around the nation to compile best practices and learn from each other’s experiences. HCOHSEM conducted hundreds of briefings that connected leadership at all levels with our partner’s activities on the front lines of the pandemic. The Planning team compiled situation reports to update our partners and the Communications team helped make sure our residents were informed. Thanks to the incredible work of the Logistics team, millions of pieces of personal protective equipment (PPE) and sanitation equipment were ordered, processed, and distributed to county departments and the regional healthcare system. COVID-response has been a true team effort.

Over the course of the year, we managed the response to several threats, from the ongoing pandemic, to the Winter Storm and associated challenges, as well as chemical fires throughout the community. All along, we kept our focus squarely on the safety of our community.

Normally this report would discuss hundreds of outreach events, inter-agency meetings, and exercises. Many of those events did not happen in the early months of 2020. It took time to adjust to socially distant environments and online formats.

The extraordinary hurricane season, with 30 named storms, was a reminder that our vulnerability to natural threats is always there. Tropical Storm Beta made landfall in mid-September near Matagorda Bay bringing 10-14 inches of rainfall and flooding across Harris County. Hurricane Laura was a near miss that triggered evacuations along the Gulf of Mexico coast and Galveston Bay before devastating eastern Texas and Louisiana.  

But we’re still getting a lot done to make Harris County safer and more resilient.

In 2020, the Harris County Commissioners’ Court adopted a Harris County All-Hazard Mitigation Plan, the most in-depth study of the county’s risk ever completed. It will help Harris County and the other signatories to the plan make informed decisions on future mitigation projects. The plan, for the first time, addresses potential threats from climate change and will be an accurate baseline for the next mitigation plan in 2025. 

We also began the Uniform and Unified Approach to Preparedness, Response, and Recovery. This study, to be completed in 2021, will help develop a path to including the whole community in the emergency management cycle leveraging volunteer groups, communities of faith, and more as we face and recover from threats. 

This is the kind of big thinking and action we need to take to meet the challenges of the 21st century. 

I am proud of the office’s response to 2020. HCOHSEM remains a national model of emergency management. I thank you for the support and partnership that makes that possible.

Sincerely,

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo

The Harris County Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Management (HCOHSEM) will be a national model of “best practices” in emergency planning, preparation, response, and recovery.

HCOHSEM will help prepare, safeguard, and protect the residents and property of Harris County from the effects of disasters through effective planning, preparation, response, and recovery activities. To accomplish this mission, we will:

The HCOHSEM Intelligence Task Force (ITF) collaborates with local, state, and federal partners to develop and coordinate programs to meet the region’s homeland security needs. ITF works to provide timely, actionable intelligence to the local public safety community via its Threat Information Summary Report (TISR), In Focus, and the Texas Nexus Review.

The official 2020 Atlantic hurricane season exceeded the National Hurricane Center’s (NHC) prediction of named storms in 2020. In fact, the season was the most active and the seventh costliest on record.

The season produced 30 named storms, including 13 hurricanes, six classified as major. In addition, there were two named storms before the official start of the season –Tropical Storm Arthur and Tropical Storm Bertha

HCOHSEM monitors all tropical systems and activates the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) when storms move into or develop in the Gulf of Mexico. We coordinate closely with the NHC as well as the National Weather Service (NWS) Houston-Galveston Office to understand the potential implications of each storm that threatens our region. This collaboration allows HCOHSEM to provide timely, accurate information to local officials, our partners, and the residents of Harris County.

While 12 tropical cyclones made landfall on United States coastlines, only Hurricane Hanna and Tropical Storm Beta made landfall in Texas. In late August and September 2020, Tropical Storms Laura and Beta headed to the Gulf of Mexico, prompting a wave of warnings and watches in Harris County. HCOHSEM activated a total of four days to support response working with the federal government, the City of Houston, and other local governments in the region while continuously responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The season also marked the fifth consecutive above-average hurricane season. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), an average hurricane season usually brings 12 named storms, six hurricanes, and three major hurricanes to the Atlantic. Hurricane season is from June 1 to November 30. Peak hurricane season runs from mid-August to mid-October.

HCOHSEM began tracking the impacts of COVID-19 well before the first cases occurred outside of China in late 2019. As concerns about the potential spread to the United States increased, Harris County Public Health (HCPH) began providing briefing materials to HCOHSEM and other county departments who would be needed to carry out an effective pandemic response.

County Judge Lina Hidalgo, signed a disaster declaration in support of HCPH. Our office then activated to Level 1 - Maximum Readiness on March 2. We activated the Emergency Operations Center with full partner support and remained at Level 1 for the remainder of 2020, 304 days.

It was nine days later that the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic with more than 118,000 cases reported throughout 114 countries.

As part of its reopening strategy, Harris County incorporated a new color coded system on the Covid-19 threat level on March 11th, 2020 to inform residents of risks involved with daily activities. The county also published a set of indicators, benchmarks, and more detailed descriptions of each level. The detailed descriptions are included here.

HCOHSEM’s role in coordinating communications was critical to the decision-making process and keeping our community informed. While the COVID-19 activation ran concurrently with other emergencies, our team’s creativity and commitment to our community endured.

During the pandemic, the ITF committed itself to producing its regular products, as well as adding a new priority: COVID-19 situational awareness. The task force scanned open-source products, reports, and items provided by local, state, and federal partners to alert the county’s public safety community to common threats and notable trends related to the pandemic.

The ITF also researched and reviewed Covid-19 information almost daily from multiple sources to include local, national, and international media platforms. The information was analyzed and the most important developments shared with HCOSHEM and partners for awareness.

The HCOHSEM logistics team facilitates logistical support for countywide emergency operations (i.e., provide supplies, equipment, and PPE) and, if required, sleeping and feeding facilities for HCOHSEM staff.

Since March 2020, the planning team has worked with partners to develop situational reports for the Covid-19 response. Relationships with HCOHSEM partners became extremely important when incorporating Covid concerns into existing evacuation and sheltering plans.

As part of the COVID-19 response, Harris County Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) coordinators created a program that allowed CERT volunteers to assemble protective facemasks, rebottle sanitizer into smaller containers, and bundle masks for distribution while following safety protocols. The teams were able to assemble over 18,000 masks in approximately 720 volunteer hours. In addition, volunteers bottled 500 gallons of sanitizer and re-packaged 200,000 masks for distribution.

HCOHSEM staff also worked to assist Harris County Public Health (HCPH) with their early testing sites at Stallworth Stadium in Baytown. HCOHSEM was able to coordinate CERT volunteers from BayCERT to assist HCPH at the Baytown testing location which saw over 1,000 residents its first week. HCOHSEM knows that the most successful response to a disaster comes through coordination and collaboration.

HCOHSEM develops and maintains emergency operation plans based on an all-hazards approach and following state and federal guidelines. Harris County’s Basic Plan and its 22 annexes define and describe how the county will respond to incidents and provide guidelines for emergency management activities including mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. HCOHSEM strives to meet FEMA’s “Whole Community” approach to planning and integrates guidance for functional and access needs (FAN) residents into current plans.

• Produced Incident Action Plans, Situational Reports, Judge’s Briefs, and GIS products to assist operations and first responders with activities that are occurring throughout the county and the region.
• Engaged in scheduled meetings with partners and provided feedback from an emergency management perspective.
• Maintained the State of Texas Emergency Assistance Registry (STEAR) for Harris County.
• Completed a 6-month planning effort to update the Harris County’s Basic Plan in partnership with the Harris County Fire Marshal’s Office, local jurisdictions, and local government entities.
• Each local and inter-jurisdictional agency is required to prepare and keep current an emergency management plan for its area providing for disaster mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. Nineteen cities and 33 emergency service districts signed on to the Harris County Basic Plan.

In 2020, the HCOHSEM GIS Team worked hard to conquer all the challenges they faced. Working in collaboration with the Planning and Communications Teams, the GIS Department helped plan for the unknown, maintain data libraries, and monitor situational awareness within the office.

With simultaneous activations from COVID-19 to tropical weather, the GIS Department paired up with numerous partner agencies to track and display COVID-19 case counts and their trends.

The team also focused on mapping potential storm surge levels, monitored high water locations, and produced 665 products with 439 being hard-copy maps while the other 226 were cloud-based Esri products. The cloud-based products included StoryMap, Operations Dashboards, surveys, and web applications.

The 2019 ITC Fire Gap Analysis identified the need for an Operations Supervisor and an additional Industrial Liaison to enhance HCOHSEM’s ability to respond to hazardous material and other industry-related incidents, among others. In 2020, the Harris County Commissioners’ Court approved the addition of both positions and a formal Operations Section was created.

The Operations Section was created to support the tactical operations of our law enforcement, fire, pollution control, and other partners in the field. They may also coordinate the county’s response to emergency disaster assistance requests from jurisdictions in the county.

In 2020, HCOHSEM's Operations Team responded to six incidents:

The Harris County Emergency Operations Center (EOC) is a state-of-the-art facility equipped with the latest technology and designed for round-the-clock operations. The EOC is a centralized location where public safety, emergency response, county departments, community services, and other jurisdictional agencies can coordinate planning and support activities. The EOC is located at Houston TranStar.

Community partners that can reach our county’s most vulnerable communities provide additional support during activations. Among the organizations who were instrumental in EOC operations throughout 2020 are:

The Coronavirus pandemic placed extraordinary demands on communications and beyond. HCOHSEM’s Communications Department expanded virtual work capabilities using new tools and best practices that supported collaboration, productivity, and continuity.

As the county responds to and recovers from disasters, non-profit partners such as the American Red Cross, the Houston Food Bank, Salvation Army, and other community-based partners deploy resources to assist residents most impacted by emergencies. HCOHSEM meets with these partners regularly to better understand their community members and operations, and to plan an effective recovery for the whole community.

Along with the largest petrochemical complex in the world, Houston is home to Fortune 500 companies, the Texas Medical Center, Port of Houston, and thousands of businesses that drive the local and national economy. HCOHSEM has an Industrial Liaison program that provides the industrial community a touchstone in the county. Our liaisons serve as on-scene contact during industrial incidents or to provide expertise to the HCOHSEM staff in the planning and communication processes.