One teenager and two horses are dead after a car crash on a Texas freeway.
avid_creative/Getty Images
Beaumont Enterprise
Courtney Pedersen, Staff writer
After waiting over eight months, there will soon be new Beaumont Police vehicles on the road.
The city of Beaumont's fiscal year 2023 budget included the purchase of 19 new vehicles for the Beaumont Police Department to replace vehicle models from 2009 to 2017.
But supply chain problems have forced the city to wait months for the vehicles and now ultimately buy them from a new vendor.
City of Beaumont Fleet Manager Jeff Harville said that police vehicles need to be replaced more often than a typical driver, as police drive on average double the miles in the same amount of time and keep the engine on while sitting and waiting.
Harville said the $995,000 order for 10 Ford Explorer Police Pursuit Vehicles and nine Ford F-150 Police Pursuit Vehicles was placed in October.
However, car manufacturers are struggling with supply problems like the rest of the country is struggling to get a prescription in or a steering wheel in for a car.
"Ford, General Motors and Selantas (who now own Dodge) -- the three major vehicle manufacturers that typically have police ready vehicles are all having problems providing those vehicles," Harville said. "They're all having problems getting parts, all that stems back from COVID-19 and supply chain issues have just been going crazy across the country for the last couple of years."
An October purchase order typically would have had the vehicles in Beaumont by December, however Silsbee Ford is still unable to get the vehicles, Harville said.
Instead, the city was presented with the opportunity to purchase 19 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 police packages from Lake Country Chevrolet in Jasper, he said.
The police package includes electrical systems to handle the lights, radios, cameras and computer systems needed for police cars, as well as a different support and brake system, Harville said.
"We should start receiving them probably in the next week," Harville said. "It's just a plain vehicle, like your vehicle, then we have to get it through all the upfit process getting all the lights, the city of Beaumont police graphics on it and everything that goes with it."
Harville said the process will cost the city $5,000 per vehicle.
"They have to be outfitted and then you start putting them out in the street," Harville said.