When Dallas County Emergency Management Agency Director Brett Howard woke up, he was already at work.

He’d spent the night at the Dallas County EMA for the last few days and he expects to continue the practice for a few more.

Immediately upon opening, the calls started announcing the next crisis to come out of Hurricane Ivan.

“We’re one of the hardest hit county’s in the state,” Howard said.

As of Thursday morning, 90 percent of Dallas County was without power, about 37,000 people. In Selma alone, 18,500 people were in the dark.

When Friday came, most of them were calling Howard to let him know every problem that

occurred after the hurricane hit.

Lines were down, roads blocked and, worst of all, the North Dallas County Water Authority was without power.

“People are going to have to start boiling water,” Howard said to one caller. “I’m one generator short of keeping this county in water.”

He spent the rest of the morning attempting the herculean task of securing a generator for the well pumps of North Dallas.

Howard got the job done.

Now, Dallas County doesn’t have a problem with water.

“Selmont Water Works did a great job of keeping water flowing,” he said.

The Dallas County Emergency Management Agency is ground central for any disaster that strikes the county.

Howard’s job is to coordinate assistance and cleanup efforts to Dallas County residents through the storm, and especially after.

“I’ve got the volunteer fire departments cleaning up roadways, I’ve got 16 deputies out there today (assessing damage),” Howard said. “It’s (Dallas County) already been declared for disaster relief.”

EMA officials completed a preliminary damage count on Saturday. Officials said that 435 homes and 32 businesses were also damaged. The American Red Cross currently has several teams working on a more complete assessment of the storm’s damage.

Howard will spend the next few days making sure everyone’s problems are dealt with as quickly as possible.

Despite these problems, Howard knows the county was lucky.

“We didn’t get near the rainfall we expected,” he said.

Rainfall totals for Wednesday were six inches.

Soon after the hurricane, emergency communications were back online.

Howard only has a handful of goals to make sure the emergencies facing the county are taken care of as soon as possible.

“Our goal is to make sure everybody gets water,” he said. “I’m trying to get the roadways cleared.”

Howard is also making sure that the greatest power needs are met as quickly as possible. Like powering the pumps at the North Dallas County Water Authority. He was also glad to hear that Cosby Ice was in business early Wednesday morning.

Howard said that ice was important because the highway workers, police and firefighters needed to stay cool. Also, because a lot of people were without water, they didn’t have air conditioning to weather out the hot weather coming through as Ivan left town.

“It’s fixing to be hot,” Howard said.

During the morning, Howard continued calling Alabama Power and EMA crews all over the state to try and get the pumps at the North Dallas County Water Authority back online.

The phone rang and after a few minutes he hung up, spun around and clapped his hands.

“North Dallas

has water!”

Now, there’s only a few other problems left to take care of.