The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has initiated a series of training exercises, equipment evaluations, and emergency readiness drills along the Texas coast to prepare for the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season.
Running each year from June 1 through Nov. 30, the multi-month season prompts year-round mitigation and planning pipelines across the state’s transportation network.
In the Houston region, local maintenance crews recently executed an eight-hour “dry run” hurricane field simulation. Operating under a mock weather scenario featuring a major tropical system developing in the Gulf of Mexico, personnel utilized heavy machinery, transport trucks, and advanced surveillance drones to systematically inspect arterial roadways, signal grids, and low-lying bridges vulnerable to storm surges.
TxDOT Houston Maintenance Director Melody Galland said that these hands-on drills provide teams with critical experience, ensuring the department can respond efficiently during a real-world landfalling emergency. According to TxDOT Emergency Management Coordinator Josh Pulley, the recurring field exercises have led to marked operational improvements across signal maintenance and regional response coordination teams.
TxDOT’s Corpus Christi District also completed its annual structural readiness drill in Aransas Pass to test the department’s regional storm surge barrier along State Highway 361. The logistical exercise requires highway crews to practice installing a partial section of the massive flood defense wall, verifying that all interlocking mechanical components remain functional and that personnel are familiar with deployment protocols.
Department officials confirmed that full assembly of the surge wall is automatically triggered whenever a major tropical system is projected to make landfall in the Coastal Bend. The protective barrier was last fully erected in 2017 ahead of the catastrophic landfall of Hurricane Harvey.