The City of Amarillo held a press conference at the Office of Emergency Management on Monday afternoon to give further updates on the area’s ongoing flood disaster.

The conference opened with remarks by Mayor Cole Stanley and City Manager Jared Miller, followed by updates from various officials from the city and other responding organizations.

According to OEM director Max Dunlap, there have been 442 completed damage assessments, including several that are “fully destroyed.” Dunlap noted that there are 73 people currently at the emergency shelter. He also stated that rainfall from Sunday evening was not “a significant setback.”

Chief Martin Birkenfeld of the Amarillo Police Department thanked the community “for the outstanding level of cooperation” and stated that the city has had “very few problems with people going into the areas that they shouldn’t be in.” He also noted that the city is working to move barricades to open up access as waters recede.

Deputy Chief Brandon Mason of the Amarillo Fire Department noted that 327 rescues have been completed. Mason also recognized various outside agencies from around the state who have been helping, including teams from Porter, North County, Stafford, Essex, New Waverly, Timber Lakes, South County, McKinney, Bonham, Allen, Groesbeck, and Fort Worth. He also thanked United for allowing the use of their parking lot for their command unit.

Assistant Public Works director Alan Harder noted that, all city pumps have been running since Bennett Lake’s was started on Saturday morning. He also noted that pumps from TxDOT have been installed and are running at Lawrence Lake and Greenways Lake. “Our engineering department is currently working on estimates for when the water around those lakes will recede back into the actual boundary of the lake,” said Harder. He also asked that residents contact the solid waste department to schedule a curbside pickup if they have flood damaged items in need of disposal.

Wes Reeves of Xcel Energy noted that, as inspectors have gone through the area around Lawrence Lake, most customers have been able to have their power restored. There are still 169 without power, concentrated on the Oakridge Apartments area.

Amarillo Animal Management and Welfare director Victoria Medley noted that there have been “Animal Management has had officers staged at the relief locations 24/7 to assist with rescue and removal of animals in the evacuation zone” and that, as of Sunday evening, 98 animals have been rescued. There are 27 animals at the emergency shelter, which will be visited by the Texas Tech vet school to provide services.

Janell Menahem of the Panhandle VOAD noted that the Multi-Agency Resource Center was closed on Friday evening and that those still in need are encouraged to reach out to 211.

Responding to a question from The Amarillo Pioneer, City Manager Jared Miller noted that staff “wiil be working with the Mayor and Council, getting options, things for them to consider […] on how we to move forward, to plan to be more resilient for this type of thing in the future” as the city begins the budgeting process. Included in the response will be “talking about different federal and state grant resources […] to try and bring in outside money.” He did note, however, that “there’s not a lot of time to be able to put a lot of plans into place for this upcoming budget year.”

Mayor Cole Stanley also spoke on the topic of how the city’s budgeting process will be impacted, stating that they will “need to study what previous councils have proposed that, maybe, we as citizens didn’t fund or that staff hasn’t had the funding to do. Right now, we have an opportunity to go back, we do need to do a full evaluation, we need to see where we’ve been, what worked and what didn’t, and then I think we need to take a look at what could be done better.”

Assistant City Manager Floyd Hartman said that “where one lake pumps to another lake has been a challenge that’s been identified in this” and that that will be brought to the Mayor and Council during budgeting. He cited the fact that changing the system so that Bennett Lake no longer pumps into Lawrence Lake as a potential capital project that will need to be looked at. “Some of that infrastructure stuff is going to be a priority in the budget, and I would anticipate that to be one of the top number of projects.”

Mayor Stanley also spoke on volunteer cleanup projects, which will start with a 9:00 am cleanup at Medipark on Saturday. Another volunteer opportunity will take place the following Saturday at McDonald Lake. More information will be provided via the City of Amarillo Communications Department and social media. “By the end of summer, I think we can make it all the way around town.”