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City updates hurricane readiness, announces free sandbag events
Summary
City Manager Peter Zenoni and Emergency Management Coordinator Jace Johnson briefed the City Council on hurricane-season preparations, saying NOAA projects a below‑normal season but stressing that "it only takes one." The council was told a free sandbag distribution will run June 13 and June 27 at Cabinet Athletic Complex.
City Manager Peter Zenoni and Emergency Management Coordinator Jace Johnson told the Corpus Christi City Council on June 2 that the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1–Nov. 30 and is currently forecast by NOAA to be below normal, with roughly eight to 14 named storms, three to six hurricanes and one to three major hurricanes.
"It only takes one," Jace Johnson told the council, emphasizing that even a quieter forecast does not remove the need for preparedness. Johnson described the city’s Emergency Operations Center at 2406 Leopard Street (fourth floor of the fire administration building), the city’s 14 emergency teams, and the suite of partner agencies — including the National Weather Service, the U.S. Coast Guard, Red Cross, hospitals and 211 Texas — that staff the center during an activation.
Zenoni said the city will continue layered communications to reach residents and special-needs populations, including utility inserts and social-media messages. He and Johnson highlighted recent technology improvements at the National Weather Service and said more precise forecasting helps officials make earlier evacuation and resource-allocation decisions.
The council also heard details of a pre-storm service the city has scheduled: two free sandbag distributions at Cabinet Athletic Complex, 3061 Saratoga Boulevard. Public Works Director Ernesto (Ernie) Deagarza said the events will be June 13 (8 a.m.–noon) and June 27 (1–5 p.m.). The city will provide up to eight pre-filled bags per customer and will load them into vehicles so residents do not have to exit their cars. Deagarza said the site was chosen to improve traffic flow and to avoid prior queues on city streets; CCISD is assisting with staging and traffic control.
Johnson and Zenoni urged residents to sign up for the region’s reverse‑alert system and to follow National Weather Service briefings once storms form. "We are evergreen and ready to activate 24/7," Johnson said of the EOC, and he urged residents to treat early warnings seriously to preserve both life and property.
The briefing closed with staff offering district-level outreach and continued public information sessions; no formal council action was taken on the presentation itself. The city plans to publish updated resource pages and the June event maps on ReadyCC and the Office of Emergency Management web pages.
Next steps: the city will update its public-facing storm resources and push the sandbag event details through city social media and utility billing inserts in the coming weeks.
