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Dallas opens shelters and deploys road, emergency and utility resources as winter storm arrives
Summary
City officials said the municipal response to a winter storm includes temporary shelters for more than 1,200 people, expanded sanding and traffic-scouting operations, prioritized power restoration at critical facilities and guidance to avoid travel unless necessary.
Dallas officials said Wednesday that city departments have mobilized to shelter people, keep main thoroughfares passable and protect critical services as a winter storm affects the area.
Kevin Oden, director of emergency management and crisis response, said the city processed two resource requests to support shelter operations and that "last night, staff here at the city provided shelter to almost a 1000 persons," a figure that city shelter leads later updated to 1,268 individuals across sites. Oden said the city was monitoring 3-1-1 calls, responding to heating and multifamily concerns through code compliance, and tracking traffic incidents; the city logged 27 traffic incidents in the past 24 hours and reported that accident volume in the last four hours was roughly double a typical day. He added that about "69 customers" were without power and that the city and its utility partner were prioritizing critical sites, including inclement-weather shelters, for restoration.
To keep roads safer, Transportation and Public Works officials said crews are operating 12-hour shifts and routing about 50 trucks to trouble spots. "We are marrying up our traffic and our weather monitoring system," Oden said, describing a new tool that overlays accident locations, traffic volume and precipitation so crews can proactively find and sand hot spots. Tina Richardson, assistant director of transportation, said concentrations of calls have come from the southwest Oak Cliff area.
Dallas Fire Rescue said enhanced cold-weather operations are in place and that crews had assisted with after-hours transport to shelters for 48 individuals. Major Nathan Sawyers of the Dallas Police Department said officers remain staffed and ready to respond to incidents during the event.
City officials urged residents not to travel unless necessary. "If you don't have to get on the roads tonight or tomorrow morning or during the day tomorrow, please don't," Rick Erickson, deputy director of communications, customer experience and 311, said. Dallas 311 remains available 24/7 and is handling inclement-weather calls; Daisy Fast, director of 311, said callers are experiencing average answer times of about 16 seconds.
Air travel at Dallas Love Field remained operational; Lauren Rounds of the Department of Aviation said runways and taxiways had been pretreated, but airlines had begun adjusting schedules and passengers should check with carriers for cancellations and arrive early.
The city continues to post updates on dallascitynews.net and dallas.gov and said another briefing is planned for the following day.
