New Scotland Yard pays visit to Houston today

(10/22/07 - KTRK/HOUSTON) (KTRK) -- Hurricanes Rita and Katrina thrust Houston into the national spotlight and it appears the world was watching as well.

Emergency officials from London are in the Bayou City today, hoping the lessons we learned from those storms will help them better prepare for disasters in their country.

Looking at the monitoring and control systems at Transtar was New Scotland Yard press official Helen Kennedy's first glimpse at how agencies in Houston prepare for disaster.

"Though we're prepared, we could be better prepared," she said.

Kennedy says she's here on a fact finding mission to see how we deal with evacuations. She says London doesn't experience the same threats we do here in Houston. Her main goal is to learn how Houston agencies disseminate information to the press.

Harris County Judge Ed Emmett explained some of the lessons learned during Hurricane Katrina and Rita, one of which was evacuating New Orleans residents to Houston, another hurricane-prone area.

"If we had to evacuate or if New Orleans had to, it would be someplace inland," he said. "You won't see another coastal to coastal evacuation."

Judge Emmett says he wants to learn just as much from Helen as she does from us.

"The incidents in the subway, for example, I have friends in London who talked about how long it took them to get home and I'm going to be curious as to what arrangements are being made to immediately take care of people in the area, to get them back out," said Judge Emmett.

Kennedy heads to Washington DC after her two days here. She had stops in Florida and New Orleans before arriving in Houston.

She says one thing she's learned since being in the U.S. is how many agencies get involved in any one incident, something she says it a little problematic.
(Copyright © 2007, KTRK-TV)

Get more News »

• Email
• Print
• Report a typo
•