Liberty Hill council hears how a full‑time emergency manager could bolster flood, festival response

Liberty Hill’s council spent part of its July budget workshop hearing how a full‑time emergency manager could strengthen the city’s ability to prepare for and respond to disasters, especially during large public events.

Cassandra Edwards, introduced herself as “deputy director of emergency management for the City of Hutto,” and told council emergency management is more than response: it covers prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. “Response is just one of the mission areas within emergency management,” Edwards said, explaining that prevention work can include infrastructure redundancy, mitigation work requires an up‑to‑date hazard mitigation plan to access grant dollars, and preparedness covers training and exercises for staff and first responders.

Edwards described specific duties a jurisdiction’s emergency manager often handles outside active incidents: maintaining the emergency operations plan and annexes, conducting threat and hazard identification and risk assessments, writing and exercising incident/action plans, coordinating mass‑gathering permitting, leading damage assessments after events and documenting public assistance for FEMA reimbursement. She urged the council to register residents for the regional notification system and highlighted a capability to send urgent iPause messages to broadcast outlets for life‑threatening incidents.

Mayor noted Liberty Hill hosts several large events — the July 4 celebration can draw roughly 10,000 people and the Christmas event about 7,000 — and said those gatherings increase the need for planning and on‑site preparedness. The mayor also recounted having relied on an emergency manager lent by neighboring jurisdictions during recent flood response and said the city’s current practice of having elected officials and existing staff fill EM duties creates capacity strains.

Council members asked how an on‑staff EM would interact with public works, police and fire and whether the position’s work would justify the personnel cost; staff said the role also helps position the city for mitigation grants and improves documentation needed for state and federal reimbursement.

Next steps: the EM position was included on the supplemental personnel list; council directed staff to vet the supplemental list as part of the broader budget process and bring recommendations back with the draft budget on Aug. 1.