The Ector County Medical Examiner’s Office is required to investigate all deaths not attended by a physician. The Medical Examiner’s Office has been struggling with room to store deceased persons for years. Medical Center hospital’s morgue only has room for 6 bodies and Odessa Regional does not have a morgue.
Odessa has been ranked as the third fastest growing small city in the United States. In 2020 Odessa had a population of 129,928. It is the 28th largest city in Texas and the 214th largest city in the United States. Odessa’s population has increased by 30% since it’s most recent census, which recorded a population of 99,940 in 2010. With an increased population Odessa has understandably seen an increase in homicide, suicide, drug overdoses, and vehicle accidents resulting in fatalities. All of these increases have been recorded with no growth to Odessa’s morgue and with limited storage the ME’s office must rely on local funeral homes for any overflow. In some instances chain of custody would limit where a body may be stored to prevent compromising an investigation. The medical examiner’s office has used a FEMA cold storage truck located at the coliseum to store bodies during the pandemic but they need a long term solution due to the growth we’ve seen.
With an increase in oil and gas activity comes more people, more traffic and more accidents in West Texas. COVID-19 slowed things down but the oil boom always finds its way back. In 2019 the many oilfield projects and heavy traffic created many challenges for West Texas drivers to deal with. Fracking brings commercial grade vehicles such as pump trucks and sand haulers which creates a strain on our highways. From 2016-2018, crashes in the Odessa district were up 67% with fatalities up 97%. Commercial Motor Vehicle crashes were up 160% with those fatalities up 122%. Texas Department of Public Safety suggests that the increased commercial vehicles are responsible for serious safety issues that impact all vehicles in West Texas. While the state as a whole will see a decline in traffic accidents the Permian Basin will see a spike due to the influx of people coupled with poor road conditions and impaired or distracted drivers. Many of these crashes will result in fatalities. In 2019 Texas Department of Public safety invested more than 2 billion dollars in projects designed to make the roads in the Odessa District much better and safer. These project included paving and widening roads that are seeing heavy traffic to improve the conditions of existing roads and lanes to make them better for the heavy vehicles that are using roads and to alleviate traffic. Oilfield is the heart of the Permian Basin. The growth will come and go and our elected officials must start planning and taking care of our cities needs prior to us being in crisis mode. I am grateful for the improvements that Texas Department of Public Safety has made and continues to make but we have to keep up at the city level too.
With COVID-19 cases trending down from record highs our county officials decided to approve using $88,500 from left over CARES Act money (Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security Act) to construct a bigger building for the medical examiners office to store bodies and relieve the stress they have been dealing with for years. It will be located near the Sheriff’s Department and jail on Highway 385 South. I wish we did not need room to store more than six bodies but the reality is we do.
I applaud Judge Debi Hays and the Ector County Commissioners for using left over CARES Act money for a project that Ector County needs rather than using it frivolously.