Past Disaster Helped Houston Respond

The first call for help was made at 3 a.m. Aug. 31 to Robert Eckels, chief executive of Harris County. On the line was a familiar voice: Jack Colley, head of the Texas office of the Department of Homeland Security.

Colley gave Eckels disturbing news: Hurricane Katrina was still assaulting Louisiana and Mississippi and tens of thousands of evacuees were stranded in the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans. The governor of Louisiana was pleading with Texas Gov. Rick Perry for help.

Colley then relayed a request from Perry: “Can you take 23,750 people in the Astrodome?”

Eckels, a lawyer with a slight Texas drawl in his voice, remembers thinking for a moment and then saying, “Yes, sir, we can.”

The Houston area is tornado and flash-flood country and city and county officials like Eckels take disaster planning seriously -- particularly after Tropical Storm Allison flooded 55,000 homes, caused $5 billion in damage and flooded major hospitals in 2001.

Eckels immediately called Frank Gutierrez, coordinator of homeland security and emergency management for Harris County. “Make the plan work, Frank,” he told Gutierrez.

What happened in the next 20 hours, before the first bus arrived, stands as one of the bright spots in the rescue effort after Katrina’s decimation of the Gulf Coast.

While other governments may have fumbled, residents and officials of this sprawling Texas community rose to a challenge larger than anyone ever imagined would be dumped in their laps.

The call from Eckels to Gutierrez set in motion several hours of urgent phone calls, e-mail appeals, conference calls and then an emergency meeting at 9 a.m. of two dozen politicians and bureaucrats.

They would devise and oversee what proved to be the nation’s most concentrated governmental effort for Katrina victims in the early hours and days of the disaster.

As presiding officer of the county Court of Commissioners, Eckels holds an elected job that comes with the title of judge. He also manages several key departments, including homeland security and emergency management.

Dr. Kenneth Mattox, chief of staff for the Harris County Hospital District, remembers getting his call at 6 a.m. It was his one day a week to sleep until 7 a.m., but the caller made plain that wasn’t going to be possible.

He doesn’t remember exactly who called, but he remembers the message: “The judge [Eckels] says we’re getting people from the [Super]dome. It’s our opportunity to give them hope.”

The relief effort had its glitches and was tweaked along the way, but officials say those first hours, and the advance planning, made all the difference.

As relief efforts here begin to wind down, Harris County is being praised for its ability and readiness to provide shelter, medical care and food for more than 30,000 evacuees.

Officials say several factors were crucial: planning, much of it based on the experience of Allison; a unified command structure; and an agreement to set egos and rival political agendas aside. Also critical was a network of 45,000 volunteers developed in advance.

“You have to put aside political differences,” said Eckels, a Republican, who has worked with Mayor Bill White, a Democrat. “You have to not care who gets credit.”

At the 9 a.m. meeting, Gutierrez opened by asking, “Is there anyone who doesn’t know everybody?” The answer was no. Everybody knew and had worked with everybody else on planning.

Officials at the meeting decided several things, including an “exit strategy.” Evacuees would be treated with compassion but would be told that the Astrodome “is a shelter, not a home.”

“The idea of a long-term refugee camp is unacceptable” for the evacuees and Harris County residents, White told the group.

After the meeting, officials broke into smaller groups focusing on their areas of responsibility: medical, transportation, food, media relations, housing, volunteers and clothing.

While the leadership group was deciding the big picture, a small army of employees was gearing up for a long day and an even longer night.

Mark Sloan, a Harris County employee who works for Eckels and Gutierrez, got his first call by 5:30 a.m. He was told to be part of a conference call before sunrise.

By 9:30 a.m., he had sent a mass e-mail to dozens of faith-based groups, charitable organizations and nongovernmental agencies seeking volunteers. By noon he had more than 1,000 responses, temporarily crashing his computer.

“It doesn’t get done without volunteers,” Sloan said.

All day, the huge quantity of supplies needed to help a city-sized population arriving with nothing were lined up and moved to the Astrodome.

By 7:30 p.m., thousands of cots had been placed on the floor of the stadium, once the home to the NFL and Major League Baseball but barely used in recent years. The food vendor for Reliant Stadium, next to the Astrodome, was contracted to provide food for the evacuees.

The first buses arrived before midnight. With communications disrupted in Louisiana, Harris County had no warning as to when the buses would arrive or how many people would be aboard.

Dr. Herminia Palacio, executive director for Harris County Public Health and Environmental Services, remembers the faces of the evacuees that night. She didn’t know a single one, but they looked familiar in their fear and exhaustion.

“These are people just like us, as we were during Allison,” she said.

Within 24 hours, more than 15,000 people had arrived on 200 buses. More than 30,000 were to arrive in the next week. Most were severely dehydrated and hundreds suffered diarrhea and vomiting.

Medical clinics were established within the Astrodome; later, a pharmacy was set up. Some 11,000 immunizations were administered. Evacuees were immunized.

Pregnant women were singled out for care; diabetics and dialysis patients were seen by specialists.

From the beginning, there have been dozens of police inside the stadium and other shelters to ensure there would be no repeat of the violence in the Superdome.

Mike Montgomery, the county fire marshal, remembers being pleased when the buses began arriving. A blanket and a cot on the concrete floor of a defunct sports arena isn’t much, he said, but it was a world away from the Superdome.

“It was a safe place and it was a dry place,” he said.

The population is now down by two-thirds, to about 8,600. Evacuees are finding permanent housing and federal assistance is flowing in.

Politicians and celebrities have visited the Astrodome. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), blistering in her critique of the federal government’s response, praised Houston as a model of disaster preparedness.

Eckels, a member of President Bush’s Advisory Commission on Homeland Security, hustling between meetings of the command staff this week, said simply, “We’re just glad we were able to make it work.”