With Houston being a hub for natural disasters, it’s important to have leaders ready to step into action.
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That’s why KPRC 2 meteorologist Anthony Yanez recently sat down with Houston Mayor John Whitmire to discuss his first hurricane season in office. With an expected busy and impactful season ahead, Mayor Whitmire emphasized the need for community-wide preparedness.
“I think we need all hands on deck,” he said. “One reason I was excited to talk to you is to let Houstonians, the greater Houston community, realize this is serious and everyone needs to personally, their families get prepared because the city’s getting prepared.”
“And certainly our recent storms have given us an opportunity to dust off all of our best tools and resources,” Whitmire continued. “I only learned during the recent storm that our multiservice centers do not have generators. So when you refer people to a multiservice center, or we try to gear up as a cooling center and the power’s out at the Multiservice center, no generator. So I began talking to the federal government, FEMA, and others about helping us.”
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Yanez also asked Whitmire about his role as mayor during the hurricane season, how he views his responsibilities, and where hurricane preparedness ranks in his priorities. He noted that Whitmire had mentioned his job now encompasses everything he has done in the past in government but on a much larger scale.
“Yeah, yeah it is. Being the mayor of Houston is a challenge. It’s a hard job. I’ve prepared my whole adult life for it as a legislator for over 50 years. The relationships, working with the county,” Whitmire said. “County commissioners started calling me the night of the storm. We’re bringing our resources from outside Houston, into the city of Houston. In their precincts, the unincorporated areas have resources. We’re bringing our trucks and crews. My role is to make sure that it’s running on time, to make certain that I can get the department heads the resources they need.”
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Yanez asked the mayor as well, if Houston was more prepared for a storm like Hurricane Harvey.
“We know the names of the storms, and we know the damage, and they’re not our friends. So what we have to do is be prepared, and be ready for the unexpected. And you do that by having the resources. We have much, much (more) mobility and rescue vehicles today than we did prior to Harvey,” Whitmire said. “A lot of federal funds have come down, FEMA funding. So I just think and that the the benefit of your conversation with me is to let everybody know we all have a responsibility. Certainly, I have one and will be held accountable. And it’s amazing, just a little variation of the path to how well we’ll change the impact.”
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Whitmire spoke about how Houston is prepared for storms like Harvey and emphasized the city’s unity in the face of disasters.
“We don’t want a major storm to hit Houston directly. Yeah, but we’ll be prepared. You know what it does? It shows how great Houston is to look out for one another. Our unity,” he concluded. “We’re proud of our diversity, our separate communities, their culture, their language. But when we get in these crisis situations, we become Houstonians.”
