WESLACO – The Weslaco Fire Department said they're prepared for a mass casualty event or a large-scale disaster.

Weslaco Fire Chief Antonio Lopez said the city is now home to the large ambulance bus called the AMBUS. It can respond to hurricanes or even fatal crashes.

The large mobile ambulance can attend to 20 patients at the same time.

Lopez said the bus will enable their firefighter and EMS teams to respond quickly anywhere in the Rio Grande Valley.

“The citizens should feel safe knowing they have this in their backyard, knowing they have training, personnel and our rescue capabilities in our backyard and knowing we have contact with the rest of Texas. So when we need to bring these resources down here, we can have 12 of these buses join this one,” he said.

The bus costs about half a million dollars and is owned by the state.