In preparation for the second round of winter weather this week, Fort Worth emergency responders are working cooperatively to keep the city functioning as safely as possible.
During Monday’s winter weather, responders from the Fort Worth Fire Department, the Fort Worth Police Department, MedStar, the Texas Department of Transportation and others met in the Fort Worth Joint Emergency Operation Center to discuss safety, according to a tweet from the police department.
For today’s weather, the operation center will be buzzing again.
From the center, officials can monitor traffic conditions, send out emergency alerts and even change stoplights.
MedStar Business Development Manager Brett Lyle said MedStar responded to 57 weather related calls from 8 am to 3:30 pm. 10 of the calls were responses to people falling, and the others were for car wrecks.
Lyle said today was different than Monday and Tuesday because more people were out on the roads.
“People were already at work or school, and decided to rush home when it got bad,” Lyle said.
Eric Carter, Homeland Security Grants Manager for Fort Worth, said informing the public about what to do during winter storms is the first step for the Office of Emergency Management.
“We’re able to push out messages that encourage folks to take care of themselves, taking a little bit of the load off of first responders,” Carter said.
Kyle Falkner, the Public Information Officer for the Fort Worth Fire Department, said the fire department responded to 70 wrecks during the first phase of the storm, only a slight uptick from a regular day.
“With what we saw on Monday and Tuesday, I think there was enough warning, we really saw that people stayed off the roads,” said Falkner. “If people heed the warnings and stay off the roads, it really cuts down on the number of accidents.”