Austin Public Health presented an after-action report to the Austin-Travis County Public Health Commission on the department's response to severe winter weather activations in January 2025. Emergency Management Manager Anna Urueta told commissioners the city activated the emergency operations center twice during the month and that shelters, outreach and public-health surveillance were central to the response.

The after-action summary reported that during the first activation the city provided continuous 24-hour cold-weather sheltering and recorded 756 overnight shelter stays. During a later, more severe activation Public Health staff reported more than 2,000 overnight shelter stays across six sites over a four-day period; first responders managed 29 cold-weather exposure calls, and the transcript lists 73 vehicle collisions, two structure fires and two fatalities associated with the weather incidents (specific causes of the fatalities were not specified in the presentation).

"I'm Anna Urueta. I'm emergency management manager with Austin Public Health. I oversee the public health emergency preparedness program," Urueta said while describing the Public Health role in sheltering and surveillance. She outlined department responsibilities including environmental health assessments at shelters, shelter-based disease surveillance by epidemiologists, immunizations at embarkation points, medical-care coordination through the EOC and preplanned maternal/childcare strike teams that were available but not deployed during the January activations.

Urueta told the commission that strengths identified in the response included coordinated requests and distribution of resources through an EOC shelter work group, cross-departmental staffing (environmental health officers, epidemiologists, community health workers and neighborhood services support), and timely reporting that aided situational awareness in the EOC. The department also developed job aids and used closer coordination between environmental health and epidemiology staff to reduce disease risk at shelters.

Areas for improvement in the after-action report include hygiene and shower access for people sheltering more than 24 hours (a temporary wipes-based solution was under discussion but not finalized), clearer role definitions and training for shelter managers, optimizing surveillance visits so scarce staff resources are used efficiently, and improved logistical tracking. Urueta said the department has implemented a Maximo-based logistics tracking solution and purchased a virtual emergency operations center (VOC) software to provide internal dashboards and improve information sharing.

Urueta also described a new medical-vulnerable-registry work group that will coordinate existing registries, including the Texas Emergency Assistance Registry, to identify people at higher risk during disasters and clarify roles across departments and agencies for reaching them. She said the department plans additional trainings and tentatively scheduled a winter-weather seminar to train community health workers and public-health educators (the presenter referenced "the 20th" but did not specify the month in the presentation transcript).

Commissioners asked for clarification on EOC activation levels and whether the two fatalities were exposure deaths; Urueta said the Emergency Management determinations are made by Austin Emergency Management and she did not have detailed cause-of-death information available at the meeting. Commissioners and staff discussed shelter counts and vendor-operated shelters; Urueta said the Austin Area Urban League operates at least three vendor-run cold-weather shelters and the Parks and Recreation Department (PARD) has opened rec centers in the past, with as many as nine shelters opened in prior responses as needs required.

Urueta said some components of the improvement plan originally scheduled for an August 1 completion had been rescheduled to November 1 because the department responded to additional incidents this year, including a measles response, a May microburst, a summer heat response and July flash flooding. Commissioners invited Public Health to present the after-action work on a recurring basis and discussed how the commission could support follow-up activities and recommendations.

The presentation included operational details and status updates but did not propose new ordinances or direct funding changes during the meeting; commissioners suggested the commission could assist with recommendations or advocacy going forward. The transcript shows several commissioners expressed interest in quarterly updates and in being notified when the department needs formal support or recommendations to pursue policy or budget changes.