by Butch Cook, Mayor
City of Devine
MARCH 19, 2024
I’d like to focus this week on opening the lines of communication at city hall as I promised. Our Devine City Administrator David Jordan and his staff have recently added some additional communication resources, put in place for the City of Devine to keep citizens up-to-date as much as possible.
We now have added several more layers of communication which will be very useful in emergency situations as well as informational.
I-info Emergency Notification
Our emergency management team has worked very hard to position the city to be prepared for the unexpected, including the unpredictable weather patterns that can occur in our area during the spring and summer seasons. We are asking our citizens to stay informed and subscribe to an emergency system called I-info which the city has implemented.
I-info is an innovative system that expedites how citizens receive crucial information during emergencies. With I-info, residents can expect real-time updates and alerts directly to their devices, ensuring swift and accurate dissemination of critical information. This system enhances public safety and emergency preparedness by providing timely notifications regarding severe weather, natural disasters, community emergencies, and other urgent situations via text message and email.
We currently have over 2000 subscribers in a short period of time, so please register today for I-info at: http://r.i-info.com/rc/arc or call city hall (830) 663-2804 for more information or to receive a form.
Emergency Management
To further enhance our emergency preparedness, the City of Devine has joined the Medina County Hazard Mitigation/Emergency Management plan and renewed its Regional Mutual Aide Agreements with the Alamo Area Council of Governments (AACOG) out of San Antonio.
These additional layers of assistance will allow the city to operate under the National Incident Command System (NIMS). This system establishes an incident commander and a unified command system, for better communications and coordination of resources for first responders.
In the event our local resources are completely expended from a catastrophic event, we can initiate requests for immediate assistance from the county, state and federal governments. This will also allow the city to keep receipts of all expenditures and be reimbursed for most costs.
Communication Resources
The City of Devine has also launched a Facebook page with over 700 followers already for informational and emergency purposes, including but not limited to: water outages, road closures, weather advisories and electrical outages. City staff is doing an awesome job with daily posts and updates. To follow the city Facebook page go to “City of Devine City Hall”
The Devine News is a communication partner that maintains a website, devinenews.com, as well as facebook account “The Devine News” and do a great job keeping our community informed through subscriptions, a website and social media. They serve those who don’t want social media and well as those who do.
Water Outages
Speaking of water and electrical outages, we have definitely had more than our fair share recently with so many things going on in the city with asbestos water line replacement, and two high speed internet companies trenching and boring in our right-of-ways.
My wife and I spent almost a month driving through mud to get to our house on our little corner of the world due to the line replacement; part of my yard, which I take great pride in, was abused for fiber internet; and just today, boring for the internet busted a water line next to our business and we were without water for a couple of hours. So I share the concern.
On the flip side, my water is now safer to drink; I have repaired my lawn; our side of the street is resurfaced and is in better shape than before the trenching; and I’m looking forward to the better internet service.
However, this is not intended to diminish last week’s water outage near the golf course which included a mandate to boil water after the repair was made. This too was caused by contractors trenching for Rise Internet and it was a very difficult repair, under asphalt, and complicated by the inability to shut off the water from the water tower by the golf course. City workers correctly marked the water line before the boring, which was obviously ignored, and now the contractors from Rise will be receiving a bill for our labor.
The water tower was also completely drained by the break due to the main valve being stuck “open” and unable to be closed, resulting in the mandate to boil water until it could be tested for safety reasons. TCEQ requires water testing anytime water goes out in a large area or the PSI drops below 20 PSI.
Contractors aren’t always at fault however, and at the same time neither is our public works department. A considerable number of these water lines have been in the ground 50-60 years and while our city crews know where most are by experience, there is actually NO MAP for many; however they are diligently being recorded now as they are discovered along with the new lines.
Rise Fiber has contracted to install access to high speed internet to our entire city; that’s many miles of boring and trenching through our right-ofways and every community like ours has had the same issues, so we ask that you be patient since this endeavor is 70% complete.
I spoke with Lytle mayor, Ruben Gonzales, just this morning where Rise Fiber has completed its installation and the service is now getting into homes and businesses. While they too had the same issues with water lines, he reports that their citizens are ecstatic about the new service, but more importantly, local school kids can now do their school work with ease and perform better in the classroom. He was also surprised to find out how many people work from home with reliance on internet service to do their job, and they too are excited about the improved service.