How prepared is John Whitmire for his first hurricane season as Houston mayor?

With Houston being a hub for natural disasters, it’s important that leaders are prepared to act.

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That’s why KPRC 2 Meteorologist Anthony Yanez recently sat down with Houston Mayor John Whitmire to discuss his first hurricane season in office. With the season set to be busy and impactful, Mayor Whitmire emphasized the need for community-wide preparation.

“I think we need all hands on deck,” he said. “One of the reasons I was excited to talk to you is to make Houstonians, the greater Houston community, aware that this is serious and that everyone needs to personally, their families prepare because the city prepares.”

“And our recent storms have certainly given us the opportunity to dust off all of our best tools and resources,” Whitmire continued. “I only learned during the recent storm that our multi-service centers do not have generators. So when you’re directing people to a multi-service center, or we’re trying to turn into a cooling center and the power goes out at the multi-service center, no generator. So I started talking to the federal government, FEMA and others to help us.

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Yanez also asked Whitmire about his role as mayor during hurricane season, how he views his responsibilities and where hurricane preparedness falls in his priorities. He noted that Whitmire mentioned that his work now encompasses everything he has done in the past in government, but on a much larger scale.

“Yeah, yeah, it is. Being mayor of Houston is a challenge. This is a difficult work. I have prepared for this my entire adult life as a legislator for over 50 years. The relationships, the collaboration with the county,” Whitmire said. “The county commissioners started calling me the night of the storm. We bring our resources from outside of Houston to the city of Houston. In their constituency, unincorporated areas have resources. We bring our trucks and our teams. My role is to make sure it runs on schedule, to make sure I can give the department heads the resources they need.

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Yanez also asked the mayor if Houston was better prepared for a storm like Hurricane Harvey.

“We know the names of the storms, we know the damage, and they are not our friends. So what we need to do is be prepared and ready for the unexpected. And you do that by having the resources. We have many, many (more) mobility and emergency vehicles today than we did before Harvey,” Whitmire said. “A lot of federal funds have been cut, FEMA funding. So I think the benefit of your conversation with me is letting everyone know that we all have a responsibility. Certainly, I have one and I will be held responsible. And it’s amazing, just a little variation of how we’re going to change the impact.

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Whitmire explained how Houston was preparing for storms like Harvey and emphasized the city’s unity in the face of disasters.

“We don’t want a major storm to hit Houston directly. Yeah, but we’ll be prepared. Do you know what it does? It shows how great Houston is about taking care of each other. Our unity,” he concluded. “We are proud of our diversity, our distinct communities, their culture, their language. But when we find ourselves in these crisis situations, we become Houstonians.