coronavirus

Flower Mound Firefighter Deploys to Hard Hit El Paso to Help in COVID-19 Battle

A surge in COVID-19 cases in El Paso, Texas, has led to a stay-at-home order in the city

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El Paso is seeing the worst surge of coronavirus cases since the pandemic began.

With new coronavirus cases on the rise, a nightly curfew is now in effect and people are being asked to stay home.

The record surge is pushing resources and hospitals to the brink.

Now, hospitals there are getting help from across the state, including North Texas.

To make more room, El Paso's Convention Center is being converted into a makeshift hospital, and more than 400 first responders from across Texas are now on hand.

Brandon Barth, Emergency Management Officer with the Flower Mound Fire Department, was deployed over the weekend.

Over at least the next week, he’ll match patients with hospitals outside El Paso, “That may be suitable to fly to another city in the state of Texas to then make more bed space available here in El Paso,” Barth said.

For Barth, it’s his third deployment since June. This time, he'll miss Halloween with his wife and 6-year-old daughter.

“With a lot of disasters and emergencies, whether it be a fire or a tornado or a hurricane, you know that eventually it’s going to end and with COVID it just seems to keep on going,” Barth said.

The federal government is also sending more resources.

Health officials blame the spike on family gatherings, multiple generations living in the same household and younger people going out to shop or do business.

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