The month of September, National Preparedness month, has been recognized as a time to better understand and be educated, preparing citizens for emergencies such as natural disasters, mass casualties and many other situations.
In the state of Texas hurricane season runs from June through November.
According to the Chief Administrative officer for Hidalgo County Health and Human Services Eddie Olivares said people panic buying essential supplies such as food and gasoline is a common behavior that is seen all over the region.
“From your budget perspective, if you start spending a little bit in January, February, March, April, May, by the time June comes for hurricane season, it doesn’t hit your wallet as hard,” Olivares said. “So preplan, water, food, batteries, flashlights, pre plan all of that,”
Olivares expressed that first Aid kits are an essential item that is needed in any emergency. He encourages people to even carry one in their vehicles. Although, he does advise not to purchase one as they are very expensive and instead you can make your own from home.
“You could actually make your own Stop the Bleed kit, which includes a tourniquet.” he said. It is really bandage gauze. Various types of bandaging, blood clot powder. You could include all of that for less than $75 and you’re going to pay upwards of $400 online.”
Emergency Management Coordinator for Cameron County Tom Hushen said social media is not a reliable source when it comes to predicting the weather during the possibility of a natural disaster and instead to pay attention to what the weather stations are reporting.
“We’ve had this in the past with somebody putting a report that we were running out of gas and it went wildfire on on Facebook and everybody was filling up with gas.” Hushen said. “Sure enough, we had a gas shortage because everybody was panicking and getting gas, even though there wasn’t one. So we need to make sure that you get your reliable news source,”
He said the cities in Cameron county rely on the Emergency Department to provide them with the information of what is going on during an emergency in order to make decisions accordingly.
“Anything that a city needs, they make a request to the county and then we’ll try and find it,” Hushen said. “Whether it’s through another city, another county, whether it’s through the state of Texas or whether it’s through the feds, whatever they need, we try to do that and get that for them.”
For more information about what the Emergency Management departments in your county, visit cameroncountytx.gov/emergency-management or hidalgocounty.us/85/emergency-management
This is Timothy Chapman for Vaquero Radio.
