(FORT BEND COUNTY) - The Fort Bend County Office of Homeland Security, Emergency Management, conducted a full-scale training exercise today, Jan. 26, to prepare for potential emergency weather events. The day-long exercise focused on Levee Improvement Districts and Municipal Utility Districts.
"It's reassuring to see our levee operators taking part in emergency response drills," Precinct 3 Commissioner Andy Meyers said. "Today, I visited the Bill Little Pump Station Operators in Sugar Land. I watched our levee operators' response to a variety of scenarios that they could face during a heavy rain event."
Fort Bend County has 99 miles of levees that protect billions of dollars of real estate, including homes, businesses, schools, hospitals, and shopping centers.
In addition to the more than 99 miles of levees managed by all of the Fort Bend County LID systems, the multiple districts also provide protection with other related flood control works that include:
More than 20 miles of internal drainage ditches and channels that collect and convey storm water run-off;
Outfall structures where internal storm water drainage is discharged outside of the levee;
Pump stations (electric facilities that pump the interior rainfall outside the levee during a flood event and do so with electrical power that is completely independent of the public power grid)
Flap gates and sluice gates (sliding gates to control water flow from the community to the river),
Detention ponds (reservoirs that store water over brief periods of time until the drainage ditches and channels have the capacity for ordinary flow)
Retention ponds (artificial lakes that include a permanent pool of water and space to retain excess water).
"I appreciate our levee operators' dedication to keeping us safe and the professionalism they demonstrated during today's drills," Meyers said.