HUTTO — The city’s new emergency management director took his first turn at the helm of Hutto’s emergency preparedness efforts with April’s solar eclipse. While Central Texas prepared for the possibility of gas and food shortages, extreme traffic congestion and the potential for chaos, Director Jake Isbell seemed confident in the city’s ability to handle whatever happened.
“The day was well coordinated, and we prepared for the worst, but we received the best. No eclipse related incidents or concerns arose during the day of the eclipse,” Isbell said.
Isbell was hired as the assistant emergency management coordinator in December, then promoted to director in March. While he’s new to the Hutto job, he supported over 30 counties in emergency efforts through a wide variety of disasters during his work at the Texas Division of Emergency Management.
In anticipation of the eclipse, he and his staff attended six months of planning meetings at federal, state, regional, county and local levels and had a communication plan for interaction and cooperation between all emergency services in the area.
“We coordinated city departments and resources to be staged and ready to handle many visitors just in case,” Isbell said.
The emergency management department published an online eclipse guide and a public service video with suggestions for staying safe as well as reminders to stock up on gasoline, groceries and water in case the predicted hordes of eclipsechasing travelers created a strain on local supplies.
“We prepared a short video on Hutto’s YouTube page...to ensure that the public understands the eclipse, how to view it safely, how to navigate the influx of potential visitors that will be sharing the moment with us,” City Manager James Earp told the public at a City Council meeting earlier this month.
Predictions of stormy weather may have dampened the number of visitors heading out, but the city had all necessary hands on deck.
“During the day of the eclipse, we were in constant communication with other city emergency management departments in the county, as well as county Office of Emergency Management and state-level emergency management agencies. We had access to the American Red Cross for any mass care needs that occurred,” Isbell reported.
Hutto Police Department, public works staff, communications department staff and emergency management staff joined representatives from Hutto Fire and Rescue, Hutto Independent School District and Hutto ISD Police Department in the Emergency Operations Center, ready to respond as needed.
While they received no emergency calls during the eclipse, they did receive a “heads-up” notification earlier in the day.
“We got word that a festival in Burnet had been canceled, and 35,000 people were soon going to be flooding out of that location into Williamson County. We monitored traffic and communicated with our other city partners and county to track the impact of that situation, and thankfully, no issue was caused to Hutto,” Isbell reported.
“The interagency cooperation in Hutto is some of the best in the area, if not the best,” he said.
