SAN ANTONIO — Texas has been through a lot in the past two years. The COVID-19 pandemic, landfalling hurricanes, and the February Freeze. The first of eight strategic warehouses officially opened today, which the state hopes will put Texas in a better position to respond to future disasters.
The Texas Division of Emergency Management began filling the warehouse with what is needed in the Strategic Texas Stockpile.
"This is the essentially what is a staging area for all of these critical supplies so that when there is a disaster, these resources are more readily available," said Wes Rapaport, the Communications Officer for TDEM.
The San Antonio location was chosen to be the central location for all of the other planned TDEM warehouses across the Lone Star State.
"We wanted this to be a hub for all of our other warehouses," Rapaport added. "So I think the idea here is to make sure that we had a central Texas location that was able to really be that distribution hub."
The building boasts 50 bay doors and 258,000 square feet to house materials like sanitizer, N95 masks, rubber gloves, forklifts to unload trucks full of supplies. Anything that the state decides is needed to make sure Texas is ready for whatever disaster may come in the future.
Even one of four medical mobile units that was recently used for the infusion of monoclonal antibodies.
"Our goal is to have a facility in the Rio Grande Valley in the Houston area, in the El Paso, in the Metroplex Dallas Fort Worth, the Panhandle, West Texas Lubbock area. And then, of course, this facility as well," Rapaport said.