The Galveston County EOC (Emergency Operations Center) provided support to the 13 cities in the county housing local, state, and federal agencies before, during and after Hurricane Ike.

Judge James D. Yarbrough
Galveston County Judge 
The Operational Center goes back several years, and we built the facility that we are proud of in Galveston county. Built the hound for category 5 condition, 35 foot storm surge, 175 miles an hour winds. It's located in the northern part of our county away from the coast, away from the bay.

John Simsen
EOC Coordinator
It took us about 2 years to build the facility, and its build to withstand category 5 hurricane. One of the primary benefits of the facility is that we have co-located with us the national weather service as well as the 911 communication system and the offices of the State of Texas as well.

Gene Hafele
National Weather Service
Being located with Galveston County Emergency Management has made that coordination a whole lot easier. It also helps our coordination not only in Galveston County, but also with other emergency management agencies throughout the area.

John Simsen
EOC Coordinator
Around Thursday, 2 days before landfall, we were already bringin representatives from any local, state, federal agencies into our building

Judge James D. Yarbrough
Galveston County Judge 
FEMA was there literally day one. They worked there for??? still working there, but for several months they had a number of their troops in our facility working to guide us along the paths of areas that we haven't worked before, that we haven't anything like this before.

John Simsen
EOC Coordinator 
Fortunately with Ike, the facility performed absolutely seamlessly without any problems. We never lost power, we never lost internet capability. Our generator kicked on when the power did go off as the storm was making landfall. I don't believe a lot of the people in the building even knew the generator was running, it was that seem less. Ike was definitely, the storm really put us to the test.

Judge James D. Yarbrough
Galveston County Judge 
We are certainly in the road to recovery as I like to describe it we're in a marathon we are not in a sprint. 
We're going to be recovering for several years, in various parts of the county. Fortunately for us here, probably 75% of the county is back to businesses as usual normal. Looking for the future, Ike is a distant memory

For more information visit www.fema.gov