County eyes mobile command trailer
By Lew K. Cohn
Managing Editor
The Highlander
Burnet County commissioners are interested in possibly obtaining a used mobile command trailer from Pedernales Electric Cooperative (PEC) to be kept as an asset for a three-county area.
Commissioners spoke to PEC engineering department employee Matthew Austin about the 48-foot trailer at Tuesday, Feb. 13 regular court meeting.
Precinct 4 Commissioner Joe Don Dockery, who serves on the Homeland Security Task Force Committee of the Capital Area Council of Governments (CAPCOG) said Burnet County's interest in the trailer would be to obtain an asset for the Western Counties region, which includes Burnet, Blanco and Llano counties, who would share in the cost of the trailer.
The trailer, valued at nearly $400,000, was purchased by PEC in 2016 in the wake of the May 2015 Blanco River flood in Wimberley, which killed nearly a dozen people, and was going to be used as a storm response command center, but has been surplused to the Homeland Security Task Force now after a change of management at the electric cooperative without ever having been deployed.
Austin said a feasibility study performed by PEC determined the cooperative would likely only use the trailer about 0.05 percent of the time, so “it make sense to make the trailer surplus and make it available for local governments who might be interested in it.”
The fully-equipped trailer includes a conference room and two-person dispatch station, with up-to-the-minute weather satellite and news reporting. It is self-sufficient and equipped with a generator and HVAC unit.
It cannot move under its own power, but can be towed by a larger vehicle, allowing first responders to set up a mobile command center with dispatch capabilities at the scene of a major incident, such as the tornado which hit Burnet in March 1973; the 2007 rain bomb which pummeled Marble Falls with 19 inches of rain in six hours, causing widespread flooding and claiming the lives of Bradley McMellon and Paul Slinkard; or the 2011 Pedernales One fire in Spicewood, which burned some 6,500 acres and destroyed 60 homes and structures.
“The trailer can be billable to FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) under the federal emergency agreement with the state during large-scale incidents and can be considered a Type 1 command center because it has a satellite uplink,” Austin said. “God forbid we ever have another Spicewood, but this would be an asset the region could use in case of such an emergency.”
Austin said grocery giant H-E-B has expressed an interest in the trailer as well, but PEC and the Homeland Security Task Force would prefer to see it retained by a local governing body first. So far, the Western Region is the only governing entity which has expressed an interest in the trailer.
County Judge James Oakley, who sits on the PEC Board of Directors, said he has heard PEC is just looking to recoup a maximum of $125,000 for the trailer. He indicated the three counties would have to agree on a funding mechanism that would split the cost of the trailer, and there is not a current memorandum of understanding about how that would be done as interest is merely in the preliminary stage at this time.
Commissioners also expressed some concerns about the impact purchasing the trailer would have on Burnet County's budget as nothing has been budgeted for such a purchase. They decided to appoint Dockery and Precinct 1 Commissioner Jim Luther to a committee that would work with Llano and Blanco counties to determine whether to pursue purchasing the trailer.
