Name: Commissioners may soon pull the plug on Harris County’s pop-up hospital at NRG Park
Brand: click2houston.com
SKU: click2houston-com-9
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

Commissioners may soon pull the plug on Harris County’s pop-up hospital at NRG Park

preview

LIVETags:&nbsp;Sign up for our NewslettersTags:&nbsp;HOUSTON – Channel 2 Investigates has learned Harris County Commissioners could pull the plug on the temporary medical shelter at NRG Park as early as next week.The facility, with a potential price tag of $60 million, was designed by Garner Environmental Services, a Deer Park company, to help with a surge of coronavirus patients at the Texas Medical Center. But that surge never materialized and the facility sits empty right now.Construction on the temporary medical shelter began just over two weeks ago and was finished in a matter of days. It features 250 beds and is equipped to handle an influx of COVID-19 patients. “We don’t want to be caught flat-footed," said Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo at the time. "We are working to stay ahead of this.”Channel 2 Investigated obtained the full contract between the county and Garner Environmental Services. Among some of the items in it, we found highly compensated personnel ranging from: “Obviously, the county has a lot of public information officers that could be given this task," says Ed Emmett, former Harris County Judge and current KPRC 2 Political Analyst. “It’s a lot of money, $60 million, does that make sense,” asked Emmett after we showed him the contract.At the time the contract was approved, the Houston-area was still a few weeks from peak resource use, according to two national databases. And over those weeks, Houston never came close to using all of the resources in its hospitals. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner made that clear on April 6, a day before the deal with Garner Environmental Services was approved by county commissioners. “We are still within the hospitals’ abilities to handle the load," said Turner at the time.That assessment has proven accurate and as the number of daily cases appears to be on the decline, it doesn’t appear the temporary facility will need to be mobilized. If it had been, the price tag for the project could have hit that $60 million mark. But as it stands now, Harris County’s bill could be closer to $17 million and with the federal government pledging to reimburse 75% of the cost, county taxpayers could be on the hook for only $4.25 million.Some county residents we spoke with Tuesday supported building the shelter, while others questioned whether it was a wise use of money.Channel 2 Investigates did have two interviews scheduled with John Temperelli, Vice President of Garner Environmental Services, but both times he canceled.Copyright 2020 by KPRC Click2Houston - All rights reserved.About the Author:

LIVETags:&nbsp;Sign up for our NewslettersTags:&nbsp;HOUSTON – Channel 2 Investigates has learned Harris County Commissioners could pull the plug on the temporary medical shelter at NRG Park as early as next week.The facility, with a potential price tag of $60 million, was designed by Garner Environmental Services, a Deer Park company, to help with a surge of coronavirus patients at the Texas Medical Center. But that surge never materialized and the facility sits empty right now.Construction on the temporary medical shelter began just over two weeks ago and was finished in a matter of days....

public

Mario Díaz

Mario Diaz

click2houston.com

Credible

Speculation

Anecdotal Evidence

Generalization

Stacking the Deck

Appeal to Authority

Straw Man

Slippery Slope

Emotional Appeal

Red Herring

False Dilemma

Illogical

Moral Equivalency

Ad Hominem

Correlation w/o Causation

Semantics

Begging the Question

Faulty Analogy

Non Sequitur

Bandwagon

Dogmatism

Failing Occam's Razor

Biased

Pure Opinion

Hit Piece

Racial Bias

National Bias

Religious Bias

Financial Incentive

Political Agenda

Gender Bias

Misused Image/Video

Study Misinterpreted

Mistake

Misused Term

Science Misrepresented

Factual Error

Satire

Surface Level

Lack of Reliable Sources

Sensational

Not Credible

Investigative

Balanced

Well Sourced

Great Context

sports

entertainment

U.S.

international

business

technology

science

culture

politics

media

health

Commissioners may soon pull the plug on Harris County’s pop-up hospital at NRG Park

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS