Electricity service was restored to 40 percent of the county by Monday but it could be up to 10 days before service is available to all customers.
Restoring electricity is critical because without it, water and sewage services cannot be restored. Once that happens and the hospital functions as normal, evacuees will be allowed to return, said Dennis Baker, Bell County emergency management coordinator.
At one point Bell County provided shelter for 1,036 evacuees. Although that number has decreased a bit, officials say that local shelters are still 73 percent full.
Baker confirmed reports out of Brazoria that an elderly person evacuated to Bell County died at a local hospital.
“I suspect that one individual was taken directly to the hospital upon arrival,” he said.
Baker said people continued to call for shelter assistance Monday. He said the best location for people looking for a place to stay would be San Antonio or the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
Evacuees will likely head back to Brazoria this week, Baker said, as officials there are working on a repatriation plan that calls for shelters to be opened in Brazoria as soon as essential services are restored.
Those staying in Bell County shelters would then have the opportunity to go back home, or if there is too much damage, to a shelter closer to home.
John Fisher, Bell County commissioner for Precinct 4, said relief efforts by volunteers and emergency management professionals had been exemplary and showed Bell County as a shining star.
Temple City Manager David Blackburn agreed with the assessment.
“Our emergency shelter operations have gone well. The work done by the Bell County Emergency Management Office, along with the area cities emergency management officials has been very good,” Blackburn said. “The coordination efforts among the state, the county and the area cities has been vastly improved, in large part I think, due to what was learned from Katrina and Rita.”
Supplies, communications and other logistical efforts have been relatively smooth and without any significant incidence, he said.
“Our Temple shelters, both for general population and special needs population, have operated well,” Blackburn said. “Our staff and volunteers have done exceptional work, and around the clock work.”
One thing that made this evacuee effort a little more challenging was the midweek forecast that indicated Bell County and Temple might need to prepare for tropical storm wind and rain, Blackburn said.
“Our preparatory efforts for that eventuality, to include the activation of the Temple EOC at midnight on Friday, kept emergency management staff quite busy,” Blackburn said. “Thankfully, our planning and preparation did not have to be put into place as the storm turned in a more eastern direction. But, we were ready and staff did a great job in getting us to that position.”
The city will conduct an after-action briefing after the evacuees return home and look at what officials did well and what can be improved on.
“There are always areas where we can do better,” Blackburn said.
Staff writer Robert Stinson contributed to this story
