Leaders grade emergency preparedness

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Leaders in Central Texas all met Wednesday morning to grade how they are doing when it comes to emergency preparedness.

And they have had plenty of tests throughout the past year -- all starting with the attack on the Echelon Building one year ago on Friday.

"It is ironic we are doing this today," said Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo. "Echelon is symbolic of the fact that we are not completely safe. We have had incidents occur. They happened in the past, will happen again, and we have to be vigilant and prepare."

A lot of the leaders at this symposium expressed satisfaction with the way emergencies were handled throughout the past year, but they admitted there was some room for improvement.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the cold weather and power outages presented an emergency situation.

And a few months before that, there was a gunman on the University of Texas campus.

A year ago this Friday marks the day a pilot targeted the IRS building when he flew his plane into the Echelon Building.

Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell is also the chairman of the Urban Working Group, a partnership involving Travis, Hays and Williamson counties.

Leffingwell said each time they were well-prepared, but he also said political leaders, himself included, need to be more involved in the process.

Acevedo said meetings like these are important, especially considering what happened a year ago.

And one of the things discussed Wednesday was communication in an emergency and the importance of social media. During the UT shooting, several students said they first found out something was wrong through either Facebook or Twitter.