In the aftermath of Beryl making landfall Monday as a Category 1 hurricane, the Houston Police Department sent out a call asking for volunteer officers from across the state to help the city as it recovered.
The police forces of North Texas answered.
Squad cars lined up Thursday morning around the block of the Dallas Police Department headquarters on Botham Jean Boulevard, preparing to caravan south on Interstate 45 to Houston. About 60 officers came from the Fort Worth, Irving, Grand Prairie, Allen, Plano, McKinney, Garland, Carrollton and Mesquite police departments, among others. They will work 12-hour shifts for the next four days, giving some relief to the Houston police force that has been at full deployment since Tuesday morning.
“We have officers that are out there that, they were personally impacted,” said Larry Satterwhite, acting chief for Houston police. “They have trees in their houses, they have no power, they have families that are in need.”
In a news conference Thursday afternoon, Houston officials said they requested the help given the large portions of the city still without power. CenterPoint Energy, Houston’s utility provider, said over 2 million customers were without electricity after the storm’s initial landfall. As of Thursday, more than 1 million were still waiting for their power to be restored, according to the CenterPoint outage portal.
“We wouldn’t be having this discussion if we had electricity, but we had a mean storm come through and do extensive damage,” Houston Mayor John Whitmire said.
Outside officers will be using their own squad cars as they assist the Houston force. They will be partnered with Houston police officers as they aid in protecting communities without power, distributing supplies, traffic management at intersections with downed traffic lights and helping electric crews.
The city had 14,000 traffic lights out as of 1 p.m. Thursday, Whitmire said.
The state is providing financial support for this collaboration, following an existing model used to share firefighters and EMS between cities. The effort was coordinated by the Texas Department of Emergency Management, and other officers also came from San Antonio and Corpus Christi.
Whitmire said he has been putting pressure on CenterPoint to improve the situation and that the city will hold them accountable, but said accountability would come later after a thorough review.
“Right now the focus is ‘Get the lights on,’” he said.