ROUND ROCK, Texas (KXAN) — The City of Round Rock experienced a multitude of disasters in the past five years, including a global pandemic, an EF-2 tornado, and a hail storm that resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.
City staffing is reflecting on these disasters as it updates its hazard mitigation plan. It’s a plan updated every five years designed to “minimize or eliminate the long-term risk to human life and property from known hazards through effective mitigation,” according to the city.
In the 2010s, the city was always concerned with flooding, but recently, winter storms are a concern after the state lost power in 2021 and the heavy brush clean up after the winter storm in 2023.
“We now take those lessons learned and we apply them to the future,” Sara Bustilloz, the director of communications for the city of Round Rock, explained.
Take the hail storm from last year as an example of how it can be implemented into the mitigation plan. Bustilloz described the city could look into the development code and tweak the requirements for garages so people have a place to park their car when a hail storm is imminent.
The city is hosting three public meetings for people to learn about the plan and to add their own input for the plan. The first meeting is Monday evening at the Public Safety Training Center at 5:30 p.m.
The second meeting is on May 22 at 5:30 p.m. at the Round Rock Public Library. The third and final meeting is on June 18 at 5:30 p.m. at the Public Safety Training Center. If you can not make those meetings, you can also fill out a survey online.