Tarrant County is putting roughly $10 million toward permanent backup power at two critical facilities: the Green Bay Jail and the Tarrant County Resource Connection Building. County commissioners approved the funding during an October meeting, and officials say it will help keep essential services running the next time severe weather knocks out the power grid.
The money is federal Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery funding from HUD, administered through the Texas General Land Office's 2021 Winter Storms grant program, according to Fort Worth Report. Tarrant County Judge Tim O'Hare and Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham publicly celebrated the approval, framing it as a long-term investment in the county's ability to withstand prolonged outages.
“This funding strengthens our emergency readiness and helps ensure we can respond to our citizens when future emergencies arise,” O'Hare said, according to the outlet's report. He also said he was grateful for the grant administered by the state land office.
What the Grant Actually Pays For
The roughly $10 million grant will go toward installing permanent emergency backup generator power systems at both the Resource Connection Building and Green Bay Jail, per the same account. Both locations will see a standby generator, automatic transfer switch, conduit and wiring, fuel system improvements, and electrical distribution upgrades, along with construction of a generator foundation at each site.
Buckingham said the upgrades are meant to do more than just keep the lights on. She said the project will “improve the continuity of essential government operations, reduce the impacts of future disasters, and provide reliable backup power during prolonged utility outages.”
Why These Two Facilities
The Tarrant County Resource Connection Building is a 280-acre campus housing health, education, employment and human service agencies that serve county residents, the report notes. Losing power there during a disaster could disrupt services for some of the county's most vulnerable residents at the exact moment they need help most.
Green Bay Jail, meanwhile, functions as overflow housing when the main jail in downtown Fort Worth reaches capacity, according to the same reporting. A reliable power source at that facility is tied directly to basic security and operational continuity for the county's correctional system.
Part of a Larger Statewide Recovery Effort
The 2021 Winter Storms program that is funding Tarrant County's project was made available across 251 Secondary MID counties affected by the storm, according to a presentation from the Texas General Land Office. The federal government had allocated $43,632,000 in Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery funding to the state in response to the storm, per the Land Office's disaster recovery page.
That broader recovery effort has already touched Tarrant County before. In November 2023, about $30.4 million from a related HUD program was designated for Dallas, Harris and Tarrant counties, KXAN reported at the time. A separate $7.5 million program under the same statewide plan was set aside for long-term recovery and disaster relief at fire protection facilities in the state's remaining 251 counties.
For now, the newly approved funding gives Tarrant County a concrete tool against the kind of extended power failures that hit Texas hardest during the 2021 freeze. Officials have not detailed a construction timeline or said when the generators at Green Bay Jail and the Resource Connection campus will be operational.
