Among the thousands of fans at Fiesta de la Flor this weekend, you’ll also see paramedics on bikes and motorized vehicles.
Their mission during the two-day event is to provide medical help to anyone who may need it.
Alongside them, police will also have increased presence in the area this year.
“People who stand in long lines tend to get into like arguments in line, peoples tempers get short and like I said they’ll be people drinking so if we can just keep those calm down (sic) we’ll have a strong police presence there so that should help deter some things,” explained Captain James McCarty with Corpus Christi Police Department.
The city’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC) will coordinate all of this extra effort on-site, working out of a mobile command center.
“And we have our sky-watch, which is a mobile camera system but the nice thing about it too is its very visible and people understand that there’s a police presence there so they can see that and know that the police have the ability to see what I’m doing, (sic)” McCarty said.
But police have another safety issue in mind, keeping crowds safe as they come and go.
“We have to worry addressing things such as vehicle access with all the things going on with people doing things with cars you know we have to use water barricades and things like that to make sure that they can’t drive into the crowd,” said McCarty.
The Emergency Operations Manager told KRIS 6 News that they’ve been planning responses for any type of emergency. He gets daily updates from the National Weather Service just incase bad weather strikes like it did last year, when crowds had to be evacuated. But, he says, if it does happen, he and all first responders will be ready in less then 30 minutes.
