Guadalupe County close to buying emergency response trailer
27 May 2023
Guadalupe County, News
Dalondo Moultrie The Seguin Gazette
A year after a tornado ripped through Kingsbury homes, Guadalupe County authorities are trying to improve their ability to respond should a similar disaster strike.
Following discussion Guadalupe County Assistant Fire Marshal Bryce Houlton presented on the topic, members of the county’s commissioners court are considering ways to fund the purchase of mobile command communications trailer. Once the county takes delivery of the trailer, it will help in a number of ways, including in the event of emergency responses like the county experienced last year, Houlton said.
“The Kingsbury tornado is probably one of the bigger ones we would’ve used it. It would’ve allowed us to have a satellite office out there to where those residents could’ve come there and got things they needed a lot easier,” he said. “A lot of wildland fires last summer, we would’ve used it a lot for those. It would’ve been used quite a bit on that.”
The Guadalupe County Emergency Management Office has tried to obtain a mobile command communications trailer for about two years, Houlton said. Last year, the office applied for a federal grant that commissioners accepted earlier this year to pay for the trailer, he said. The court in January requested proposals for the manufacture of the 40-foot-long trailer to the emergency management office’s specifications.
Representatives with his office met with other stakeholders from agencies such as the Guadalupe County Sheriff’s Office and local police departments to determine specific design features, Houlton said.
The vehicle will have information technology equipment, emergency radios, large televisions, monitors and more, he said.
Costs to complete manufacture and outfitting of the trailer have increased significantly since the court approved its purchase and now come in at about $352,000. With the federal Urban Area Securities Initiative grant and about $86,000 from the fire marshal’s budget, the county is about $43,000 shy of the amount needed to buy the trailer, Houlton said.
“The funding changed as we’ve seen cost increases on every single item we’ve had to purchase,” County Judge Kyle Kutscher said. “This one’s no different.”
The county has multiple possible funding sources to make up the difference and buy the trailer, Kutscher said. He wanted to discuss the additional expenditure with the rest of the court before locking down exactly from where the money will come, the judge said.
Commissioners decided before moving forward to have the emergency management office take a closer look at its budgets to determine whether it can fund the additional $43,000. The court took no action on the discussion Tuesday morning.
Once funding is worked out and the county takes delivery of the vehicle, the county can use it for a host of things, Houlton said.
“It’d be used for all different types of responses, everything from law enforcement responses, large fires, and disasters — flooding, tornadoes, those types of responses — and any large events like county fairs, concerts or any large mass gatherings,” he said. “We’d use it as a command post.”
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