Hurricane Harvey News. Law Enforcement on the ground in Houston....a web log of a deployed police officer...

Note:  I have a number of law enforcement officers that partake in the discussions on this blog.  They come for the talk on military matters, fitness etc...and stay for the views on modern policing.  We don't always agree but when do brothers ever?  I want to make this clear.  Just like in the Marine Corps, when I see something I disagree with in law enforcement I will speak out about it.  It does not however mean that I'm anti-police.  I'm not.  I've never had a bad experience with law enforcement.  Having said that these are the words of a guy on the ground in Houston.  He is doing God's work and I thank him for it.  Hell I'm in awe of all the guys doing work down there. He asked me to clean this up, but I'm not gonna do it.  He's been up and moving for the past 5 days playing the old hurry up and wait game.  Meeting to discuss the movement, action once on location...the standard game plan everyone would recognize that spent 5 min in the military.

I won't clean it up because I want you to get the full drink here.  Drink this in. The Rambos in the audience won't understand but you get primed to move, primed to put your back into the work and you're like a race horse ready to blast down the track.  You're checking gear, rechecking, meeting, planning, going over scenarios...before you even deploy you're a caffeine junky operating on the ass end of too little sleep.  That's what he went thru before he touched down.  This is the third note I've gotten from him so we'll skip the preamble and jump right into his arrival in Houston.

via "T"

Update with better info.

Sol I've been in Houston a few days now and would like to give everyone an idea of what the Police Officers have gone through.

So from what I'm gathering they had an all hands on deck that started on Friday. All leave was suspended and everyone that was in town was brought in. They remained on that condition until Wednesday I believe, could be wrong both their and my days are running together. So on call forth them means they get sleep when they are worn out. At some point their headquarters became an island due to the flooding. Most officers slept either in buildings or in squad cars. We are talking an hour or two nap really every now and then. Some police ran out of food.  They are tired and need a break. In Houston the pd has rescue boats and there have been plenty state and local agency boats heading out to other areas of the hurricane as I was arriving.

So now the all hands is done the city implemented a curfew to attempt to keep looting down now that can focus on enforcement. The officers are now working 12 on and 12 off for the next few days. Now that other officers are here the ones needing to fix their own homes can request days off to do so.

  The message now is to prevent looting and to protect the city from exploding. They have had one officer drown, have lost 200 patrol vehicles, and now having looters shoot at them

Passing out while typing so you can post this message. Please just make sure it's coherent. 5 days with 2hrs sleep a day has caught up to me.

Wow.

I never even considered the idea that they would have lost police cars. I wonder what else has been destroyed that the first responders need to safeguard the city?

This confirms one thing I did not believe.

Looters are shooting at officers?  Craziness!

This is gonna be a long term thing.  It hasn't gained national attention but their is a gas shortage in N. Texas.  The pipeline has been turned off to New York.

The whole nation is about to feel the pain as sure as the guys like "T" that are working on the recovery.