Mark Keough - Montgomery County Judge Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Six twenty one time here on Houston's Morning News. Yeah,
bad weather day on Saturday, and so unusual to have
that at the end of December, but you know, it's
been unusually warm, and those storms kicked in and once
they started forming, they caused problems for several hours. Joining
us to talk about Montgomery County, Judge Mark Keel, I
know the Conroe area, that the area kind of between

(00:22):
Conroe and the Harris County line was particularly a hard
hit Judge.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Well, you know it was, but more so over towards
the East County Porter Heights over in that area to
the two forty two and thirteen fourteen area. But I
got to tell you they did get hit hard. It
was an EF three. I don't know if you know this,
but that categorizes that that is a severe damage to

(00:47):
devastating damage one hundred and thirty six one hundred and
sixty five mile p our winds. Yeah, it was amazing.
When we got there, it was chaos.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
I guess the good news about tornadoes is they generally
don't last long. The bad news about tornadoes is that
you don't get a whole lot of warning, do.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
You No, you don't. And as a matter of fact,
in this particular one, it came We went out there
on the just as it had come and had done
the devastation. Then all of a sudden, the sun comes out.
It was amazing, and then right behind that came hail
and more storm, and so you know, there there was
some serious damage out. There was three hundred and two

(01:24):
homes that were damaged. Of that, thirty were absolutely destroyed,
forty seven had major damage, then the rest from minor
and cosmetic damage. Had fifteen people that were trapped, but
somehow they were the first responders for they were able
to get them out and nobody. We had no fatalities.
We did have some people that had injuries, minor injuries

(01:47):
taken to the hospital. But I have to tell you know,
we really did dodge a bullet on this one. The
Lord was watching out for us, and although it was
pretty devastating to the actual structures, the people came out
good in this deal.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Yeah, you're right about that, because you know, there's not
a lot of places to run and hide when the
tornado hits in Texas. Most of us don't have a
basement to go to. We just have to head towards
the interior. Of the home, so there's no place to
get below ground in order to try to protect yourself
and your family.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
That's right, That's exactly right. You know. We we are.
We have an EESD one fifty four out in that
area and they had farmen were in the building and
all of a sudden, just out of nowhere, that that
building got hit and did a lot of damage to it,
and so they're putting it back together. But I got
to tell you it was it happened so fast. It

(02:37):
just came out of nowhere. And we knew there was
going to be storms. We expected. I gave plenty of
warning on my Facebook, my County Marchillo County Judge Facebook page,
but then all of a sudden, it really did happen.
It materialized.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
So sounds like you had a lot of homes, residences
that were damaged. There were there any businesses that got
damaged or any other public buildings like schools?

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yes, yes, no schools. To the best of my knowledge,
Texas Department of Emergency Management, along with my Emergency management
team are still doing damage assessments. But this is where
we're at today, and we've pretty much got it under control,
I believe, and we also, we have a shelter that's
been set up in splendor for anybody that has the need.

(03:22):
But I have to tell you there hasn't been much
response to that. We let we've let that be very
well known. And people are dependent on out there that
are depending on their families and I guess local hotels
and that sort of thing. But we've made things available
to them.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
So so is there any think I was gonna say,
is there any state an see that also kicks in,
Judge Keo, as far as you know, is their response
to what happens during a storm like this, Yes.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
The Texas Department of Emergency Management, there are some teatom.
They have people on the scene very quickly to help
with us. We have all, of course, we had so
many of our own people up there. We had all
the constables and and and the fire departments and the
all the eesd's emergency services divisions. I have to tell

(04:09):
you though, the way that everybody came together on this
was pretty remarkable. We have people and first responders that
came from spring. There was nothing hitting the woodlands, and
the woodlands were out there. The people from Willis from
all over the county. They converged on this to help
in any way that they could. I do want to
say though, that it's important for people though as we're

(04:30):
doing these claims we have I have signed a disaster declaration,
but we have to meet the threshold and this helps
the county and the state justify our claim to the
federal government. So people are going to have to help
us by utilizing the self reporting damage assessment and they
can get that on a link to our system is

(04:51):
on the Office of Emergency Management social media or a
web page or the County judge page and social media.
So if they would do that and do this so
health assessment, that would be huge.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
Yeah, even if you just had a fence blowdown, it
all adds up, doesn't it.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
It sure does. Yeah, absolutely all right.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
Glad to hear that no lives were lost to Montgomery
County Judge and the neighbors are doing what they do
best here in Texas at neighbors helping neighbors.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
That's right, Melissa, Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
Follow me again, will do Thank you, sir, appreciate it.
Judge Mark ke Oh in Montgomery County at six twenty
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