LA GRANGE, Texas — Even though Tropical Storm Beryl didn't bring much rain to Central Texas, Fayette County was under a tropical storm warning earlier Monday that’s since been canceled.
Fayette EMA Director Angela Hahn said other than a few sprinkles of rain and gusts of wind, there was no reported damage anywhere in the county. She said the storm's path completely missed the area.
However, first responders were still prepared to respond to anything.
“We enacted our emergency plan for severe weather, in which we have deputies stationed in strategic areas all over the county to reduce time in emergency situations,” Sgt. Ron Naumann with the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office explained.
He said they were able to cover 934 square miles of the county with no flooding issues and little to no reports of wind-related incidents.
“We're very fortunate that it did miss us,” Naumann said. “The damage and things caused by hurricanes in the past, it looks like we have avoided it as of yet.”
In 2017, Hurricane Harvey and the floods that came with it destroyed homes across La Grange.
“We could see our house and it was pretty much covered in water up to the roof, almost,” said Cynthia Powell. She said she moved to the area in 2015 with her husband, Martin, before the storm hit.
Powell said Harvey devastated their neighborhood. While they were able to rebuild their home, many were not so fortunate.
“A lot of people were not allowed to rebuild, so they just had to do something else, and their homes were just left there,” Powell said.
They say Beryl's storm worried them, but they were ready.
“We’ve got all of our important stuff ready to go,” Martin Powell said. “We survived. We'd do it again.”
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Naumann said first responders do the same, changing their emergency plan as needed over the years.
“Emergency management plans are interactive with previous events and how we can make things better for the future,” he said. “That's why we enacted the emergency plan. Even though it's not needed, it's better to be prepared, and that way we can deal with the situations as they come."
The sheriff's office said county offices were shut down out of precaution for the storm. Sgt. Naumann said emergency crews went back to normal operations at 3 p.m. on Monday with no major incidents reported.