Much Needed Ice and Water Arrive in Fort Bend

Hebert, who has been frustrated for a couple of days due to the State of Texas’ slow response, said, “I’m pleased that the citizens of this county in need of ice and water will finally get them. We appreciate the state heeding our call to deliver ice and water to our citizens in need.”

Hebert thanked county employees who coordinated the delivery to five cities in the county and urged residents to be patient as the products were delivered. Individual cities will set up point of distributions to deliver the resources to the citizens.

The state only delivered to cities that submitted formal requests for ice, water and in some cases food.  Cities receiving ice only include Sugar Land, Missouri City and Stafford.  The City of Rosenberg received ice and water and the City of Arcola received ice, water and food.   Jeff Braun, the County’s Emergency Management Coordinator, was delighted to have supplies delivered to the County.  Braun said, “I would like to commend the County logistics team for their diligent efforts in coordinating the deliver of these critical resources for our County.

Earlier, Hebert expressed frustration for the state’s slow response to deliver the ice and was prepared to make private arrangements to purchase the products from a company based in Texarkana with the hope that Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) would reimburse the expense incurred by the county.

“When citizens go for more than two days without electricity, they get irritable. We had no idea when our request for ice and water was going to be filled because the state was working hard to meet the needs of the hardest areas of the state,” said Hebert.

Residents needing ice and water are those without power in their homes due to Hurricane Ike. However, Hebert noted that CenterPoint was working diligently to restore power in the county and urged residents to be patient.

The County Emergency Operations Center (EOC) has been monitoring the progress CenterPoint Energy is making to restore power to residents who had power outages. Since yesterday, Sept. 15, CenterPoint has restored power to an additional 21,000 customers in Fort Bend. The number of customers without power has dropped to 102,000.

“CenterPoint has kept us informed of what they are doing. They have been extremely responsive to concerns raised by EOC staff,” said Hebert.

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