BATTLE CREEK, Mich. –
San Angelo sits on the Concho River and is home to Goodfellow Air Force Base in central Texas. During the state’s mass flooding event July 4, the city received a record-breaking 15 inches of rain that threatened citizens and washed away vehicles, businesses, and homes.
Craig Thomason serves as the assistant chief for investigations and administration at the San Angelo Police Department. He’s also the department’s property screener who scours Defense Logistics Agency Disposition Services’ RTDWeb for excess military property that his city might benefit from. Like first responders facing emergencies in countless other jurisdictions, he said the Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected vehicle, or MRAP, that San Angelo acquired through DLA was instrumental to his city.
“The MRAP was critical to our agency’s ability to respond effectively to this emergency,” Thomason said. “It directly contributed to life-saving efforts and reflects the real-world impact of the [DLA Law Enforcement Support Office] program in our operations.”
Thomason said the vehicle’s high ground clearance and all-wheel drive capability allowed officers to navigate 8-feet-deep floodwaters and carry out some of more than 100 estimated high-water rescues.
San Angelo SWAT operator Rodney Mitchell said the vehicle allowed officers to recover a Dove Creek Volunteer Fire Department truck that had become submerged, by using its winch system to extract the truck and return it to a paved roadway.
The vehicle was also used to transport San Angelo Fire Department personnel and execute multiple rescues of civilians in the city’s Bell/Pulliam area and a stranded motorist with two additional civilians in an area of the city where buildings became submerged in up-to-15-foot-deep floodwater. All were transported safely to a collection point.
Billions of dollars’ worth of excess Defense Department supplies and equipment have been made available to communities and their law enforcement authorities in recent decades through DLA Disposition Services, LESO, and the Congressional “Section 1033” National Defense Authorization that guides it.
The vast majority of the surplus property requested by qualified recipients are considered donations – items like generators, flood light kits, utility trailers, rigid inflatable boats, and sump pumps. These items no longer meet DOD mission requirements but may still offer operational value in a non-military scenario. A small percentage of requested equipment is considered controlled property that is provided as a loan from DLA – items like night vision optics, aircraft, MRAPs, and small arms that currently must be returned to the agency when they are no longer needed.
To the southeast of San Angelo, Granite Shoals sits on a bend in Lake Lyndon B. Johnson, about 50 miles from Austin. The city’s police department is another of several thousand 1033 Program recipients spread across the country. Police Chief John Ortis described their use of military surplus vehicles, laptops and Individual First Aid Kits during his department’s July 4 flood response activation.
“Without the LESO items, we would have been sitting on our hands,” said Ortis. “The morning of the fifth, we utilized the MRAP to extract people from flooded residences to our Humvee to a local community center. Then we deployed to assist the city of Marble Falls with extractions.”
Granite Shoals is about seven miles west of Marble Falls and Ortis said it was the only area law enforcement agency able to quickly insert rescue teams in a search for Marble Falls Volunteer Fire Department Chief Michael Phillips, whose colleagues saw him swept away by surging floodwaters during a 4:30 a.m. rescue July 5. His vehicle was eventually found buried in mud, but sadly, his body was never recovered.
Texas’ July 4 flooding event killed at least 137 people and caused an estimated $20 billion in damage. Both counties where San Angelo and Granite Shoals are located were added to the Major Disaster Declaration list in July.
The San Angelo Police Department shared a video online of the extent of city flooding using drone photography that includes a short clip of aerial footage of the MRAP navigating flooded streets.