Fort Bend County has defined a disaster preparation strategy that focuses on Partnership. All political subdivisions in the County work collaboratively, often seamlessly, to improve capacity to prepare for and respond to threats. In 2004, the Fort Bend County office of Homeland Security & Emergency Management formed the Fort Bend County Coordination Council (FBCCC) in order to provide a framework for melding a patchwork of jurisdictional and agency response into a coordinated County response. The 17 jurisdictions in the County, working in concert with health care facilities and school districts, work as a team to prepare for disasters; secure homeland security funding; develop multi-jurisdictional exercise programs; and organize responder training efforts.
The FBCCC was formed with the idea that protection and security for Fort Bend citizens flows from building relationships between the various entities in the County and encouraging a team approach that allows the County and its cities and agencies to overcome disasters. The efforts of the Council have included the development of a Traffic Management Plan, designed to prepare the area for a large scale evacuation of the coastal zones in Galveston and Brazoria counties, neighbors to the south. Similarly, the FBCCC initiated the FBC PIO Network as a focused effort on emergency public information. The sharing of public information by public and private entities located in the County bolster the prospect that “one voice” will be heard when a crisis develops.
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