Listen
Listen above to hear a demonstration of how a POD, or “point of distribution,” would work.
You pull your car up to a designated area where officers and volunteers load your vehicle with either water, ice, or ready-to-eat meals.
Harris County Judge Ed Emmett says running exercises like this helps avoid some of the problems they ran into during Ike, like having the POD's in the wrong place.
"And so we learned a lot of lessons during Hurricane Ike about how better to distribute those supplies, where to locate the POD's, when they should be open, when they should be closed," Emmett says. "That's now very clear."
Another lesson learned from 2008, was POD's that were operating after grocery stores reopened.
Now that's been corrected, and people can get supplies even if they can't leave their home.
"We are going to have a system this time that will allow people to pick up supplies and take them into the neighborhoods because you just can't expect that everybody can get themselves to the POD's," Emmett says.
There are about 50 POD's in Harris County ready to go.
Some of them can serve up to 20,000 people.
- 20170725_112823 (Photo Credit: Marissa Cummings)
- 20170725_113604-1 (Photo Credit: Marissa Cummings)
- Harris County Judge Ed Emmett. (Photo Credit: Marissa Cummings)
