Miguel Gonzalez RIO GRANDE VALLEY – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley is educating the public on help available with the ReadyUTRGV website following the storm on March 27th that resulted in tornado and flooding alerts for some parts of the Rio Grande Valley.
Vice President for University Marketing and Communications Patrick Gonzales said people can fill out an Individual State of Texas Assessment Tool survey, a way for the Texas Division of Emergency Management services to help citizens.
“We have informed our faculty, we have informed our supervisors that if there’s a student or even an employee who, you know, let’s say for example is without a home because of flooding, you know, we are working with them to make sure that they continue their studies or continue their work. But also giving them time to take care of their personal situation,” said Gonzales.
According to Gonzales, the ReadyUTRGV website was created with the help of the Office of Emergency Management and University Marketing and Communications to provide resources on how to handle emergency situations.
“So, we came up with the platform or the name Ready UTRGV. So, we want people to read that and think, ‘OK, this is how I get ready for an emergency situation.’ And so, if you go to the website, you will see different emergency scenarios that are addressed and information about what you can do before that situation, what you can do during that situation, and what you can do after that situation,” added Gonzales.
Gonzales stated that the university did not sustain any major damage. He said UTRGV facilities and maintenance employees supervised every building, fixed damaged trees, removed debris and water out of campus areas.
“There were also very little power outages throughout this time, which is also good, but I don’t want the work of our employees that help get UTRGV reopened on Saturday, I don’t want that to go unnoticed,” stated Gonzales.
For more tips on how to respond to emergency situations or help available, visit the ReadyUTRGV website.
