Montgomery County morgue to move to new forensic center
An offer to powerwash a portable morgue was all Montgomery County commissioners needed to agree to move the unit from the county’s old forensic facility to its new and larger $12 million center just north of Conroe.
Commissioners were debating on whether to even keep using the portable morgue, which is on loan from the Montgomery County Hospital District and was especially needed during the COVID pandemic when the number of deaths rose, before they agreed on its new home.
“We spent a lot of money,” Precinct 3 Commissioner James Noack said at a Jan. 24 meeting. “(The new facility) is a beautiful place ... we don’t need another one.” He also said the new center will be able to hold about 60 corpses, 35 more than the old site.
Jason Millsaps, executive director of the county’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said when the new facility was built, it included power hookups for the portable morgue in preparation to have the unit moved there.
The county has been using the 50-foot portable building for years, even before the pandemic, at the old forensics center at 205 Hilbig Street in Conroe. The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office will soon take over that site. Meanwhile, Millsaps said he is working with the hospital district to transfer the metal morgue to the county.
Precinct 2 Commissioner Charlie Riley initially suggested the portable morgue be kept at the county’s homeland security and emergency management warehouse near the Conroe North Houston Airport.
“I don’t want some piece of crap sitting over at a brand new facility,” Riley said
The county’s new 25,000square-foot forensic facility center at 9900 Carl Pickering Drive opened in October. The facility provides autopsies ordered by the county’s five justices of the peace who respond to all crime scenes involving a death.
The new center also houses the sheriff ’s office crime lab and forensic lab. Employees of that agency conduct forensics testing of crime scenes and items collected at crime scenes.
Montgomery County Forensics Director Dr. Kathryn Pinneri said the portable morgue is refrigerated and meant to hold people until autopsies are conducted in the center.
While the potential need for the trailer is low, she did note the county used it during the COVID-19 pandemic when the number of deceased at the forensic facility increased.
In 2021, the center handled 1,042 Montgomery County cases, with 312 cases coming from hospitals in the county. In 2022, as COVID cases decreased, the number of cases handled by the facility dropped to 989, Pinneri said.
“It’s an amazing asset for the county, we shouldn’t get rid of it,” Pinneri said. “Where it is stored doesn’t matter to me, as long as we can access it when we need it.”
Precinct 1 Commissioner said his crews would powerwash the portable morgue before it is moved.
The cost to move the unit will be less than $5,000, Millsaps said.