‘El Paso State of Emergency’: U.S. Rep. Escobar seeks FEMA help, rips city leaders over handling of virus

EL PASO, Texas – Declaring "El Paso is in a state of emergency," Congresswoman Veronica Escobar said Thursday evening she was asking the Federal Emergency Management Agency for help dealing with the local coronavirus crisis, while simultaneously blasting city leaders for mismanagement during the pandemic.

Her assessment came as El Paso reached a grim milestone by surpassing 1,000 new Covid-19 cases in a single day.

"We are on a dangerous path, with shrinking intensive care unit availability and low hospital capacity that should alarm us all," Escobar said, adding that "local city government failed."

The congresswoman faulted city leaders for what she called "lax" and "weak" enforcement to date of Covid-19 restrictions "with few citations for breaking the rules."

However, Mayor Dee Margo contended that early on in the process the city was "accused of being too draconian" in its enforcement efforts. "We're doing the best we can... you get hammered on either way," he told ABC-7.

Escobar also cited the city's granting of waivers for some mass gatherings - a practice recently examined extensively by ABC-7 - for contributing to the community spread blamed for fueling the current surge.

But Margo said the waivers granted all met with the approval of City/County Health Authority Dr. Hector Ocaranza and none of those gatherings "showed any sign of increased Covid positives." He said stores and restaurants are responsible for much of the current spread.

Escobar's other criticisms of El Paso city government included a lack of "robust contact tracing" efforts to date and routine long lines at some city-run virus testing sites. The mayor noted the city has run dozens of testing sites - but didn't address wait times - and added that it now has a couple hundred contact tracers.

The congresswoman expressed disappointment at what she saw as a lack of action by Margo, who appealed to El Pasoans at a briefing earlier in the day to do their part to contain the spread.

“I had hoped to hear a stronger approach by the City at their press conference today, to include more testing, quicker and more thorough contact tracing, stronger enforcement, and a push to reclaim local public health authority from the State, but that was not the case," she said.

At the news conference, Margo asked all El Pasoans to "stay home" and only go out when absolutely essential. He said his ability to take action was limited, as only the governor has the power to order shutdowns.

Also at the news conference, Margo noted he had been in touch with the governor, one of Texas' U.S. senators and Congressman Will Hurd, who represents the far eastern part of El Paso County.

But missing from his list of those he consulted about the virus surge was Escobar, who represents the majority of El Paso residents in Congress. Margo contended she hadn't reached out to him, although he didn't indicate whether he had initiated the conversations with some of the others mentioned.

In an interview Thursday night with ABC-7, Margo responded to the criticisms, in general, by saying the city had worked aggressively with state emergency management officials to try and contain the virus' spread.

"We think we're doing what needs to be done given our situation and we're monitoring it on a daily basis," Margo said.