Six flood cameras are currently being used with a plan to expand to 50 cameras across Fort Bend County.
FORT BEND COUNTY, Texas — Inside Fort Bend County’s fairly new Emergency Operations Center are even newer cameras monitored on huge screens, especially when potentially dangerous water starts to rise.
“We’re in a test phase,” said Fort Bend County Emergency Management Coordinator Greg Babst. “There’re six cameras in the first phase and then we’re going to bring on the additional cameras in the second phase.”
Babst told us 50 cameras will eventually go up in spots prone to flooding based on historical data like from Hurricane Harvey.
That’s when KHOU 11 News shot video of residents fleeing the Grand Vista subdivision.
Three of the new cameras are in the same general vicinity.
“They’ll have AI components in them to trigger us to say ‘Hey, something’s going here, you need to watch out for it,'” said Babst. “And then that pops up the camera automatically in here and lets the duty office know that ‘Hey, we need to start looking at stuff.'”
The project is costing the county at least $750,000 and is part of a 2019 bond approved by voters.
Lifelong resident Kim Hollas, who evacuated during Harvey, believes enhancing early warnings is crucial as development expands.
“As a realtor in the area, you just, there’s always the concern of “is there going to be enough property to absorb the water you know?” said Hollas. “The actual raw land, grass, retention ponds, stuff like that.”
Babst said technology commonly used to track things like traffic may now serve an even greater purpose.
“It’s going to give better situational awareness, able to stage resources for responding, if needed,” said Babst. “And then public notice.”
Officials said anyone worried about things like privacy should know the cameras do not have recording capability and are in places like public rights-of-way.