Safety committee on this 18th day of February 2026 to order at 45 p.m.

At this time our roll call uh to my right I have all the men alder menu bring you joy present thank you um older woman Daisha Conti is on her way and will be here shortly and um Karma O'Neill is present um next up on our agenda I have approval the agenda I'll entertain a motion for approval of today's agenda as I move to approve the agenda second all those in favor please say aye um we have um business and miscellaneous approval of um january twenty first two thousand twenty-six regular meeting minutes I'll entertain a motion to approve those minutes that's I'll move to approve those minutes all seconds all those in favor please say aye all right uh motion passes um very excited today um on our agenda we have our general discussion ID 1726 Office of Emergency Management uh Director Kevin Simmons and staff are you gonna be joined by all of your staff?

Eventually I am um welcome thank you Kevin Simmons the emergency manager for the city of Annapolis um so you all have a treat today you won't be hearing from me the whole time so uh brought the staff and we have a very robust presentation which we were going to give an overview of the Office of Emergency Management like you never seen it so our presentation objectives is we're gonna briefly introduce the the uh emergency management staff and highlight emergency management program and provide some of the key emergency management planning focus areas of focus and we're also going to talk about special events at your request and detailed preparedness response and recovery efforts for the recent uh winter storm which we're actually still compiling after action information so we may not have some of the answers but we're working on them so I'm gonna go ahead and start with our mission statement you've heard this before especially being on the finance committee the city of Annapolis Officer of Emergency Management provides strategic leadership coordination and subject matter expertise to effectively manage the city's all hazard prevention protection mitigation response and recovery efforts fostering a resilient community and a strong culture of safety so who are we let's go ahead and meet the team so you all know me and you all know Dave Mandel he's the deputy director Dave is a University of Maryland School of Law graduate with 16 or 15 years 16 16 years he's the longest tenured person in the Office of Emergency Management and you have MK Saborowski she's the senior emergency management planner of Millersville University Pennsylvania graduate with nine years tenure in OEM up on the right Andrew Wittakin Andrew is an emergency management planner one a university of New Hampshire graduate with one year tenure Patrick Kamar is a emergency management planner one Susquehanna University Pennsylvania graduate with one year tenure then we have Kyle Lepkowski EM grant specialist a new hampshire university graduate with one year tenure in OEM so we're stealing them from the University of New Hampshire love it and finally our most recent acquisition is Karina Rosenbaum she's a training and education and outreach public information for us to Lane University in Louisiana graduate with less than one year so this is this is my staff welcome thank you guys for coming today so just to talk about before we get into it just talk about the highlights we respond to emergencies of all kinds we manage plans and I say we have about 50 of them we conduct training and exercises especially you saw that in December when we did the citywide exercise that kind of led up to the storm people tell me that every time I do an exercise whatever the exercise is it plays out in real time so I got to be careful on what exercises I choose uh we do community engagement oversight and consequent management of special events from 2010 to uh 2024 OEM has brought in 23 million dollars in in grant funding which supports every department in the city of Annapolis it just does not go to us our staff is available

So I got to be careful on what exercises I choose.

We do community engagement, oversight, and consequent management of special events.

From 2010 to uh 2024, OEM has brought in 23 million dollars in grant funding, which supports every department in the city of Annapolis.

It just does not go to us.

Our staff is available 24-735.

We provide administrative oversight to a uh various special programs that'll be substance use disorder programs, which we we share with the fire department and the police department and the mayor's office, warm and relief program, which everybody's familiar with at Pitt Moyer, and the Food Friday program.

You might have heard about that, Madam Chair.

Um emergency management has a connection to every city function and community lifeline.

We work with all stakeholders, city department, share services, health department, department of social services, at all levels of government and community.

So what are our challenges?

So we we have the smallest budget of all the city departments.

Our budget is 762,000 uh dollars, where everybody else is in the millions.

I'm the only one with a K behind mine.

But my budget is supplemented by grants for the last 15 years.

And just the last FY23 and FY24, um, we brought in $624,000 of grants to supplement uh my budget.

And again, it doesn't all go to my budget, it goes to all of the departments.

FY24, 583,000 again.

And then uh, if you look at FY25, a big goose egg, zero.

Um that funding has been on hold, that funding has been delayed.

We don't know if we're going to receive that funding.

So our our um our budget ask is going to be to help supplement what we didn't receive in grant funding.

So expect to see see that coming soon.

Any questions so far.

No.

Okay, let's talk about some of our planning program highlights, and we're going to start with special events.

And I want to invite Patrick Kamar.

All right.

So I'll specifically be talking about special events and our role in it.

Uh good afternoon.

My name is Patrick Hammer.

I'm a planner, emergency management.

Uh so OEMs support special events that impact the city through resource through resource operations, residents and visitors, including events that have the potential to create cascading effects, and as well as those others identified by city leadership.

What we do is we provide enhanced technical planning for resources, operations, public safety, logistics, and deconfliction.

We develop and implement planning products such as incident action plans, EOC action plans, maps, weather forecasts, and et cetera.

We can activate our EOC if required and have necessary capabilities required for effective special event management.

We coordinate between city and any supporting agencies.

So we work very closely with uh Maryland State Police, Maryland Capitol Police, all the other state and local agencies that are in Annapolis.

We conduct and we provide resource management, so that's helping uh ordering things from different departments that goes through Ross if it's a large enough special event.

Uh we also handle the activation and oversight of our community emergency response team, also known as CERT, and the volunteers used for a special event.

So the most likely time you see them, there are parade marshals, so they help conduct a safe and effective parade.

They watch for you know people being Roth Fairer, not following the parade rules and things like that.

Uh so to go over the planning process, again, this is a really general look.

Every event's different.

Um we're also not involved in every event.

Um, as I noted on this previous slide, it's really the larger events are the ones that are identified by a city leadership.

That first starts with a permit that's submitted to either the city manager, special event coordinator, Felicia Nolan, or directly to Reckham Parks.

So there's a lot of events that happen on their property, which we help them with.

Um there are some events that don't require a city permit.

And in that case, we talk directly with the city organ with the organizer of the event.

Or like I noted earlier, if it's a partnering agency, so Maryland Capitol Police, if there's something on state grounds that still has effects that may impact the city, we still work with them and we can actually work see their permit.

So virtual or in person to discuss um specifics of the event, um issues that we might see arise and see if they have a solution, and if not, we can help them find one.

Um from those planning meetings, we form uh if needed a planning products.

So that's what I was talking about earlier: the incident action plan, an EOC action plan uh or other products, uh, and and the incident action plan is what's most common on these really large events.

It dictates what each city department agency and supporting agencies is going to have the role.

It's clearly written out.

Um we pull everyone together and have an operations briefing.

So we typically have that in person, but sometimes it's virtual, um, and we discuss everyone's roles and responsibilities.

That's kind of a last time to pull everyone together and answer any questions.

And then during the day of, um, depending on the event, we may activate our EOC, or we'll have someone forwardly deployed to a location um to help coordinate and also assist with messaging.

So a lot of times these special events have a traffic impact.

So we do a lot of advanced message and day of messaging to help um the citizens and visitors of Annapolis know about that.

Um then after an event, we typically do an after action and we learn from every year.

So every year we may have a lot of repeating events, but there's always room for improvement.

So we take that really into account and try to build off of what's done the previous year to do better.

Uh this is just some statistics from last year.

So just focusing on our major events, we had did over 477 planning hours, uh, 146 operations hours, so that's working the actual event.

Um that's 200 or six, sorry, six hundred and twenty-three total hours, and that's in addition to our other duties.

So special events is only a small portion of our portfolio, but as being in the city and it being very important, we do take it very seriously and spend a lot of time on it.

Those are the events that those hours came from, and that's a total of all of the staff, all of our different hours.

Uh upcoming in this year, 2026, you can see a list of the special events.

The first one being St.

Patrick's Day coming up next month.

Uh we have MLK, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Annapolis 250, Family Day, Annapolis Pride, and Military Bowl.

There's also a lot of other events that pop up between now and then, and we tackle each one of those as they rise.

I would say that um that 623 is very conservative.

Um that doesn't talk about the pop-up events.

I know like March the 7th, we have something that's shaping up to be a larger event, um, a community rally that's gonna go from uh Calvary or 301 Rao Boulevard to the State House that just pops up out of nowhere.

No kings that pop up out of nowhere.

So I would say again, this is the 623 is pretty conservative.

I I would say that we do a lot more.

That's one of the primary things that we do, and it takes a lot of time from staff.

Chief, are there specific people that are leads on different parades, or is it working together as a team?

We they are leads, and then we work together as a team.

So um AJ, who you'll hear from later, he has a St.

Patrick's Day parade.

And I think last year you had St.

Patrick's Day parade.

Last year I had Pride, sorry.

They all I mean everybody takes turns and and being the lead, and then we support them, and we coordinate.

We bring police department in, we bring the fire department in, and uh we coordinate everything, and then we move forward to to have a a good event.

But they all cross-train, and everybody can actually take their their place in leading these events.

Thank you.

Good sir.

Okay.

Um, the woman.

You're gonna put me on the spot.

Uh you know, I I thought I gave you some warning.

Yeah, you didn't.

So this is going to be a big event for us.

It's gonna be a big event for the police department, the fire department, public safety, and all.

And you and I have talked about the impact that this is going to have on the city of Annapolis.

We look forward to working with you on this.

Um, maybe you can give us just a snippet of what's going on with this.

Sure.

So on a regular year, um, when America's not getting ready to celebrate 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the city has a parade and fireworks.

Um this year, uh the Annapolis 250 Commission has been working with local partners, and it's really going to be a two-day celebration, um, starting with July 3rd.

Um, we're showing a movie in conjunction with the Annapolis Police Department on the grounds of St.

John's College.

Hamilton will be played on duo screens with the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra opening up and playing prior to that.

So there will be a lot of action on that side of town going into the evening, probably 9 30, 10 o'clock into the evening.

Um, and then the next day it starts.

There are neighborhood bike parades throughout the city.

Um there's a big focus on the Eastport bike parade for children.

Um there's going to be uh um live presentation by um Lafayette and uh Marquee as um reenactors basically in Eastport.

Um there will be activities starting at Maryland Hall in the morning, uh moving to People's Park early afternoon into the early evening, um, alongside activities happening at the State House starting, I believe, at noon inside and outside of the State House.

There will be a parade that will be ending at the State House this year instead of an Apple City dock, followed by uh the Navy Marine Corps band playing right before fireworks.

So really two days of events, um, hoping to bring in all parts of the city and visitors.

Um I would guess that we're probably gonna see an influx of 10 to 15,000 people coming into Annapolis wanting to partake in what we're planning.

Um maybe that's an overestimate, but we I think we had 10,000 for the monks last week, so I don't think it's out of the yeah, it was actually 12,000 for the yes, and I I think it'll probably be more for um Annapolis 250, and I can't wait to start uh getting with you and start coordinating and making sure we have a great event.

Yes.

So it should be fantastic, you know.

As you know, Annapolis was uh the home to many of the signers and a lot of the important things that were going on 250 years ago, so we want to do a lot of commemoration.

There's gonna be some art displays and um music and banners downtown, so people should be prepared to see a lot going on.

Sounds good.

Let's get the planning.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

Um I want to invite Kyle Lopkowski.

We're gonna talk a little bit about special program planning.

So, like Chief mentioned earlier in the slideshow, uh, we over introduce yourself.

Oh, sorry.

Kyle Abkowski, uh emergency management grants specialist.

Um, like Chief said earlier in the slideshow, uh, we oversee uh a lot of special programs, and one of those being the winter relief program, um, being with the cold temperatures as they have been over this winter.

Um, it's pretty important program um for our office and the whole city as a as a whole.

Um but the city of Annapolis winter relief program is originated and started in 2010.

Um, this is the 16th year.

Um our mission statement is nobody dies from exposure on the streets of Annapolis, with our primary goal being given uh give patrons a place to seek shelter during potentially life-threatening low temperatures.

Our secondary goal is to connect the patrons with services such as the Department of Human Services, Crisis Response, Community Service, Office of Community Services, and the Department of Health, uh, substance use and treatment recovery.

Um, we use Bless and Tech Ministries, a nonprofit organization to staff the warming centers for activations, and uh our office provides the administrative oversight.

So first time in 16 years we did lose somebody.

Um we had that terrible Arctic blast that lasted a week or so.

And as much as we tried to protect folks, we even opened up Pitmore for 24 hours so they could stay there.

And all the women I know that you knew her as well.

So this still stands.

Nobody dies from exposure on the streets of Indapolis.

That's our credo, and that's what we're we're all about, and we're going to continue to be all about that.

Can I ask a question about that?

Yes.

Given the fact that we've had some 24 hour stays and it seemingly more days of cold temperatures.

How are we doing budget wise on that?

Is that something that we need to be able to do?

Very good.

It's something that we we're actually dealing with now.

And Kyle, you want to talk a little bit more about that?

Yes.

So we pay the staff for the activations.

We are out of money in the budget that we use for that.

So I know we've been in talks about maybe getting some some funds put in to that account to help us get through the rest of the season, which ends April 30th.

And we typically, this is the second time in 16 years that we've had to do this, and this the city's been great and understanding and wanting to make sure that vulnerable populations like this is safe and they give us what we need.

So I'm not too worried about that there.

So we're which we're in the process of getting getting the funding now.

And will that cause you to seek additional funding for next year?

Add to that.

So you know, um I thought about that.

I did not request any additional funding.

We we we get about $37,000 for that.

So a lot of the years that we have, we make it through because it's not you know that cold.

This was this was a particularly brutal winter.

Um and we spent a lot.

We never typically we'll have 24 hour days, but it'll be like maybe three.

So we had eight actually this year.

So to answer your question, I didn't ask for any more, but um, we'll see what happens in next next season if I need to increase.

Okay, in my regard.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We support increasing that budget.

Maybe we could get over the cave.

Was that a question?

There was a statement.

Oh, thank you.

Um, just continuing, so in a little bit of an overview.

So right now, uh, we are in the Pitmoir uh rec center, we're in the aux gym.

Uh we operate from 7 p.m.

to 7 a.m.

or like we talked about a little bit was the 24 hours, uh 24 hour operations as necessary.

So our threshold for activation is 32 degrees.

That's with or without wind chill.

Usually the wind chill pushes the temperature a little lower, um, but that's what the fields like temperature is um, or at um our director's uh discretion.

Um we notify all our partners via distribution lists on email um and we coordinate um to set up for those activations.

Um our staffing is usually one staff member to every 10 patrons with a super nightly supervisor.

So going off, not only was it a very cold winter, but we saw um numbers reaching over 30 in a couple activations, which actually brings in another staff member um for that night to make sure that we have the correct um staffing numbers.

Um patrons are also given a cot, a blanket, and a pillow to sleep with, and they will also receive a hot meal when they stay overnight.

So I do have a question, excuse me, uh Madam Chair.

Um first off, I I have got to acknowledge the work that Alderman Conte did during this time, and she cooked meals herself and she brought uh food for these patrons.

I'm just that is the um definition of working for the people.

So I do want to call that out.

Uh, secondly, um, with that being said, do you all need support with food?

I mean, how if someone wants to donate or offer some support with that when the time comes, if the time comes where it's this severe, um, how how can they be supportive?

I know Bless and Tech receives uh a lot of food uh donations.

Um, if anybody does would like to donate food, I know we can field those, and I can give them to Bless and Tech, or if um we talk to them directly, um, they'd be more than happy to accept.

I know they get some donations from restaurants, some local restaurants around here.

Um, so those um go to the patrons when they stay over.

So recently we had um acting city manager Vicky Bucklin was having dinner at uh Chicken Roofs, and she talked this place up and they said, you know what?

You know, we would throw it out, but if we can donate it, and that's what they have.

She brought a bunch of food up to the up to the warming center.

So we have a lot of cases like that.

We have a lot of cases like that.

So if somebody thinks that they want to do a donation, they can just give us a call 410-2609167.

And we'll be glad to work with them on that.

Thank you.

Can you repeat that phone number, please?

Uh 410 216, 9167.

Thank you.

So it wasn't 260.

No, he got a right assigned time.

Okay.

What I say the first time.

Yes, that's that.

Let's not discount the call set.

All right.

Thank you.

Okay.

MK, I think you're up.

If we can see that, thank you for that.

That's really important for people to know about that program.

My name's Mary Kate Sabarowski.

I'm the senior emergency management planner for the department.

Um, so I'm gonna briefly give some kind of context into what our planning program looks like and how that um folds into what we did for the winter storm we had recently.

Uh so when we talk about planning, it's kind of a vague term and it means different things to different people, right?

So if you're looking at the graphic, the far left side is the type of planning that we do.

There's policy, strategy, operational, and tactical.

And we refer to the higher level of this planning scheme as policy and strategy, and the lower level of the scheme is operational and tactical.

And basically what that means is the higher level, so your policy and your strategy kind of dictate what you're going to do, and then your operational and tactical say how you're going to do it.

Um, so then the next column over is an illustration of like the category or the element of that type of plan.

Um so we do everything from assessment and analysis to strategic plans to operational-based plans and then incident support and actually direct incident planning.

And then the final column is just kind of an example of each one of those areas of focus.

Um, and those are on there because you're gonna be hearing and seeing a lot of those the more that you get accustomed to emergency management and our planning process.

So for this particular presentation, the ones that you're gonna hear most about are the EOP, um, incident action plans, EOC action plans, um, and then the bullet points to the side overall, basically, this is just saying that you know we develop and maintain a variety of plans.

Those plans support every single department, every single city function, and they are um specific to anything for the city that could be considered a threat or a hazard.

So not every plan is the same.

So where we have incident action plans, that could be up to 20 IAPs a year, right?

So it's it's not one plan per bullet, it could be 10 plans per bullet.

So, like the doctor said earlier, we have at least 50 plans a year that we're consistently going through.

Some of those plans that are listed up there support multiple areas.

So for existing, for example, our hazard mitigation plan, that kind of overlaps a strategy and an operational plan.

Um each of these plans that we talk about, they all have their own maintenance schedule, their own training schedule, and their own legal requirements sometimes.

Um, which basically means that we can't do every plan every single year.

We don't have the capacity, and it's not something that any local jurisdiction reasonably has the capacity to do.

So we do have to prioritize which plans we focus on, and we have to really think about how we're setting up these maintenance and training schedules so that it's feasible, it's realistic, and we can implement those lessons learned when we update them.

And we have to work with all of our stakeholders to complete these plans.

This is not a process that is done overnight.

This is a process that takes months, sometimes even years to complete.

For example, the hazard mitigation plan has to be done every five years by law.

And it takes every bit of those five years to get that plan updated and promulgated and pushed out to the public.

Um so that's kind of just the overview of how the planning scheme works with some examples.

So can you talk a little bit about the three plans that we're prioritizing right now?

Yeah, cog and EOP.

Can you hit the button for me?

So we're gonna talk about COOP COG and the EOP.

Um, so our emergency operations plan is what is called the EOP.

That's basically our foundation document that dictates how the city is going to handle and coordinate any type of um threat or hazard.

So this is what we kind of call um the Bible, right?

So it tells everybody what their roles are, how we're gonna do things, how we prioritize our resources, how we work together, who we work together with.

And it's broken down into a base plan, operational chapters, and then annexes.

So those annexes really get into that operational and tactical sphere where the roles and responsibilities are more clearly defined for each of those partners that have a role for that particular threat or hazard that we're talking about in that annex.

Continuity of operations is a big one.

We do an assessment with city leadership to determine what those essential functions are for the city.

And then this continuity structure basically says how we're going to deliver those essential functions, regardless of what's going on.

So in the event, you know, we have a power outage.

The city still has to operate and maintain those functions.

How are we going to maintain daily operations and handle the incident and make sure that those essential city services continue?

That's what COOP is in a nutshell.

And then we have COG, which is continuity of government.

So how we are actually making government continue to run, which is separate from COOP.

It's a little bit similar, but you can't have those essential services run if you don't have a government behind it to keep it running.

So they do overlap a lot, but they're two very distinct sets of plans.

And so, like I said earlier, we don't have the capacity to do every plan every year.

We do have to prioritize and really think about the core plans that need to get updated.

And as a department, we decided that those are the three we're going to focus on for the next bit.

Thank you.

So now we're going to go into the winter storm.

So we're going to focus on the planning, preparedness, response, and recovery for this event.

So when we talk about preparedness, it's largely pre-event.

This really kind of comes down to planning, training, and exercises before something happens.

So we had our 2025 winter season after action.

So that went over everything that we learned from the last season and what we were looking to do and what's called corrective actions to fix it for the next time that this event or something similar were to happen.

We conduct after actions after almost every major event or incident.

We're always looking to improve and we're always looking to do better.

So that's a standard.

So the 2025 exercise scenario was based on a winter and ice storm.

So that was a good opportunity for our departments and our partners to come together and kind of talk through how they were going to handle this type of incident for the city.

Because when we move into an EOC environment, it mirrors their day-to-day activities, but it's done a little differently.

So in order to have that seamless coordination, we needed to make sure that they understood what they were doing and how they were going to do it.

And then right before the event, um, after we got some credible forecasts from the National Weather Service, we conducted those pre-event operational coordination calls.

So that says, hey guys, something's coming.

This is how we're gonna handle it.

This is kind of how we're gonna set things up.

And then based off of the totality of circumstances and what actually happens with this winter event, this is how we're gonna handle it going forward.

It's kind of like a game setter and expectation setting.

So when we actually activated the EOC, we started off at enhanced level, which basically means we're doing extreme monitoring, right?

We're not pulling in people yet, we're kind of evaluating everything, um, and we're taking a look at what resources are needed.

Uh that was on the Friday before uh that next day, we actually moved to a partial activation, which means we were bringing people in to perform some of those emergency essential functions in those city coordinating functions in order to respond to this winter storm.

So our EOC is made up of senior policy group, a red team, and a blue team.

And so the red team and blue teams are basically shifts.

So the red team's up first, and then the blue team comes up second.

And what that does is when you're having continuous operations, it allows people an opportunity to, you know, work and then have a rest period.

So when you're running, you know, through, you can't be burning people out.

So we alternate red team and blue team, and we did that for a total of 11 operational periods for this specific event.

So at all times, 24-7, 365, you had somebody from the red team, the blue team, or emergency management skeleton crew with on-call crews managing this event.

And how long are those ships?

You said 11 operations.

11 operational periods, and they vary based off of where we're at in an incident.

Um I think the longest we had was about 11 hours or so.

And within that 11 hours, we allowed for a two-hour transition period.

So that way when the red team is finishing up and the blue team is coming on, there's no gap in information sharing.

Everybody's in alignment for what we need to do for the next operational period moving forward.

Um, but they were approximately 11 hours for the most part.

Uh every operational period had um incident objectives uh that was set by senior policy group and their priorities.

So first and foremost, we always focus on you know protection of life.

Uh we had effective coordination and situational awareness, timely and responsive support to external customers, maintaining those essential city services, that drawback to COOP, which is why it's also important.

Um tracking, managing and coordinating those resources effectively, and then maintaining public order.

So that was kind of like the overarching goals that the senior policy group gave us for this entire event.

So those objectives carry through all of those operational periods.

So when we talk about staffing and in-person and what that means, this is a basic overview of what that looks like.

So we had policy and EOC management.

We had the joint information center, which basically takes all of the public information to the city and from the city and puts it in a coordinated fashion.

Uh we had our operations section, so we focused on uh infrastructure, transportation and parking, public safety, public health and medical support, health and human services.

We had our planning section, which is staffed by our emergency management staff.

We had logistics out to make sure that the people that were working could eat.

Um we had finance and admins, and that includes employee support, making sure that the employees knew what was going on, that all of their communications were handled appropriately.

We also had the call center activated, and we had support from our department, police, mayor's office, transportation, and community services help staff that call center.

And then we had allied agency representatives.

So we had uh BGE, our state emergency management department.

We had the Maryland National Guard come out.

Um this also just kind of reflects that there's so many different moving pieces and so many different agencies and stakeholders that we need to coordinate with, and they help support the city during most of our incidents that um were at a partial activation for or higher.

Uh so looking at this slide, all of those individuals that you saw on the previous slide, this kind of shows you where they are relative in an org structure.

And so this is important because it shows that one, we're following what the national standard is for incident management, and two, it shows how we are coordinating across and up and down.

So all of these people are involved, we're not operating in a silo, you know, we're all working together.

There's an organizational structure that you can see and you can see where your role is and how that role impacts and relates to other roles in this structure in order to manage any incident or event.

Um, so like I said, it's using a national standard, it makes sure that the roles are clear and effective among all of our departments and agencies.

And the good thing about this structure is that it's scalable.

So back when I said that we were starting at enhanced for our activation, our orchard didn't look like this because we did not need to build it out that far.

But we had the ability to, so by the time we went to partial activation, this is what you got.

But the roles stayed the same, right?

The communication stayed the same.

You just got to build it out a little bit differently to meet the needs of the incident.

Good done up there.

A lot of work for seven people.

A lot of work for seven people.

Dave Mandel.

Thank you.

Good evening, Dave Mandel, Deputy Director.

I feel like one of the words most used so far, particularly with MK's uh portion of this presentation is coordination.

There's so much coordination going on on so many levels.

She talked about the departments and and all the the details involved in preparation and activation.

Andrew's gonna be up next talking about the integration of the call center and how that worked with coordination.

But what I'm gonna discuss is some of the higher level coordination with the senior policy group and the mayor and the decisions that were made at a very high level during the storm.

As you can see there on this slide, um, the mayor upon the declaration of the state of emergency local and state, requested National Guard personnel and equipment, and I'm gonna talk more about that in the next uh two slides after this one.

He also ordered the implementation of phase three of the snow emergency response plan.

And what that does is that restricts travel to essential travel only.

And it also prescribes the exact guidelines in terms of how long the response will take to clear snow emergency routes, snow connector routes, and the tertiary roads.

We all know those terms now, I'm sure, after this storm experience.

So that set the tone for the response that we we had as a city, and certainly in the emergency operations center.

Other key discussions among the senior policy group, and you can see the members of the senior policy group on the right side of that slide there.

A government operating status was a major uh point of discussion.

The city was closed.

We say the city was closed.

City offices were closed when city offices are closed.

The emergency operations center by definition is always open 24-7, 365 emergency response will always happen.

So offices may have been closed on that Monday, the 26th.

And then we were at a two-hour delay the next day, Tuesday, and then on time after that with liberal leave in effect throughout the week.

So that was a um decision at the top levels of government by by the administration after discussion among the senior policy group.

You also know about the free use of city garages.

That was in place from Sunday the 25th, all the way to I'm sorry, Saturday, the 24th, all the way to Sunday the first, over a week to give folks the opportunity to move their vehicles off of the snow emergency routes so the plows could do their work again.

I'm seeing the nods because I know we all know, having gone through the storm, how important that was.

Several departments took advantage of that of that opportunity.

We'll talk more about that.

Um finance enabled a cost code in the system so the city can track all the costs related to this storm.

We do not think reimbursement will happen, to be clear, uh, per the um per the guidelines that the FEMA and the federal government laid down in terms of what is eligible for reimbursement and what is not.

Um, but we're always prepared should something change.

Next slide, please.

Okay, I mentioned the um a mutual aid.

Now first thing we did uh in terms of mutual aid, um we always have to exhaust all avenues and resources and contractors and partnerships that we have at the local level before we go up to the state level to request additional um assets, and that's something we very rarely have to do, but this was an extraordinary storm.

And and we had to do that with this particular storm with regard to loaders and and different types of plows.

We made that request, and the state highway administration filled that request just the next day uh with very short notice.

And the city used these assets for three days, as you can see there on the slide, um, just to give uh a little extra time on the roads with these crews and uh get the roads as clear as possible towards the end of that first week of the storm.

So we used what we call the my emac.

It's the Maryland Intrastate Mutual Aid System.

It's within the state of Maryland only.

There's a there's a national um uh compact as well, but this is just the Maryland state compact where we we look to our partners and then we look to the state if we can't uh get those assets any other way, and that's how we filled uh that need during this particular storm.

Um using my EMAC and this emergency declaration, as I mentioned, um, we were able to request the National Guard.

The the mayor requested the National Guard for high clearance vehicle support and EOC coordination.

Um the National Guard was amazing.

They were doing everything we asked them to do, and some things we didn't ask them to do.

Uh, we'd find them doing missions that we uh that were helpful um that we couldn't have even expected.

So we were thrilled, I would I would say, I think it's fair to say by their by their service and support.

Um what they did most of the time was provide transportation um to facilitate staff rotations, especially in the warming center.

The director mentioned the 24 eight days of 24 hour activations, those folks were socked in, right?

Like the rest of us, um, with the snow having fallen, and then they'd spend obviously long hours in the warming center.

Folks had to get home, new folks had to come report, you know, had to work that out.

So there were there was a period of time where only the guard, the National Guard was able to facilitate those transports.

Also moved a critical trans uh critical essential personnel to the EOC, as you can imagine for the red and blue team shift, uh as MK was was mentioning, uh and other transports needed for essential operations.

Um we were prepared to use them for more.

Should we need to shelter, should we need to um do a mass evacuation?

We had contingency plans in effect.

We said, get ready.

You know, if we do a shelter, we're gonna need you to move your all these uh cots in a certain place.

So we had more contingency plans that we didn't need to use.

Um but we we we didn't make uh great use of them to uh transport personnel mostly.

They were they were great to work with.

So they was in charge of the mass evacuation if we needed to, based on you know uh no power, no electric power, et cetera.

So you see that big vehicle that they have there.

We were prepared to move mass amounts of people with that in combination with our transportation.

So we had a plan together for that in case we had lost.

And a lot of cots.

We said, How many cots can we fit in the back of that thing?

So we we had all that figured out.

Okay, I want to invite Andrew, AJ.

Good evening, everyone.

Andrew Whittakin, I am a emergency management planner for Office of Emergency Management.

So we had the Annapolis call center activated for this event as part of our joint information center to support Annapolitans during this winter storm, and it responds to non-emergency inquiries from the public.

So the JIC is kind of serves as like the central nexus for all news inquiries that we might receive, and then also allows us to do public messaging to keep the public informed.

So mostly it's made up of public information officials from various city departments.

And the Annapolis call center is part of that jig.

So OEM staff and the call center staff received 745 calls over the course of this entire winter storm event, and a lot of the calls were in relation to plowing sidewalks, uh, parking garages, and then icy roads and road salt.

So a lot of these calls were put into a tracker for public works to eventually get around to.

It was a slow, it was a much slower process because it was not a traditional snowstorm as we typically see here in Maryland.

It wasn't dry snow event, it wasn't a wet snow event, it was ice blocks, concrete snow.

Um so it did take a while to eventually get around to a lot of the streets and a lot of the neighborhoods um within the city.

I want to applaud you for the fact that you were categorizing categorizing the calls.

Um so at one point in time I called and said how many people from this street have contacted you because I kept urging them to, and you were able to very quickly send me a breakdown of you know 17 callers from this two-block radius, uh, which I appreciated.

That's really helpful for us for future um incidents.

Um, so that I will now know kind of where I want to spend some more focus if we have another snow event, um, and making sure that that street is you know a higher priority, or I I know that there was some question from some of the plow drivers.

Like, is this an emergency route or not?

It's not marked that way on our original map, but now it is.

And um, people were wondering like this we were told that the streets wide enough so we don't have to move our cars, and no, now we have to move our cars.

So that was really helpful information.

So I applaud you all for those kind of details that you were able to provide us very quickly.

Thank you.

And we had a record setting day, I think one 155 calls in one day.

Sounds right.

Yeah, with that being said, if you don't mind, I think the rest of the council members may appreciate something like that, uh, just knowing what calls were taken on our ward, maybe it's sometime whenever you're available, uh, knowing um what calls were from our ward, as well as if you wouldn't mind.

I know um we didn't receive the slides, but if we could get this, that would also be helpful if you could send that to us to add to our drive that we have the slides.

We didn't get in.

All right, continuing on.

So uh many of the calls that came through the call center um were following the end of snowfall for the snowstorm, um, primarily during recovery efforts between Monday, January 26th and Friday, January 30th, 2026, as you can see on the graph on the far right.

Uh the call center received 566 calls of the 745 total during this five-day period.

Um, and we had staff from different city departments um that worked the call center during these days where the call volume um was at its peak, um, and they received just in time training.

So they had little or no call center experience at all.

Um, and they were faced with a tall task, and they did not waver from the challenge that was presented in front of them.

So uh and again, this event um that we had, we received the highest call volume of all time that the call center has ever received um for this event.

And as I said before, um it was a slow process because the snowstorm was much different compared to a traditional dry or wet snow event.

Higher than COVID, higher than COVID.

And I want to give a shout out to a lot of city employees who helped us out in the call center.

As you can see, it's a lot of moving parts.

It's only seven of us, and we're managing everything, so we needed some help.

Transportation came in with about a half dozen folks.

Uh the mayor's office sent down some folks.

Um APD sent over um someone.

So um I like to shout out and thank them for their help in the call center, making that work.

Great.

And we have to just thank you, uh, director and the staff, like all just aside that the yov really did you.

I felt that you did your best, and I think for the response we heard, we do have to debrief about everything.

But secondly, um, to to that regard, don't be don't think frugally when it comes to asking what you think you all need because like we're talking about these grants and how you've been receiving in the case all these years.

It's about time, especially seeing what we just dealt with and knowing uh the environmental impacts to come that you request what is required to keep you all functioning well.

Um a pre-thank you for your support.

Okay, Kyle.

Uh, like Dave mentioned, another uh decision made uh by the senior policy group um was about essential employees and accommodations.

Um so we believe that essential employees carry an elevated level of duty and responsibility in serving residents of Annapolis.

Um hotel accommodations for essential employees improves the coordination and streamlines the the decision making while also enhancing employee safety during our EOC activations.

Um our office has signed agreements with the Fairfield Inn, which is right across from the police department and the Hilton Garden Inn um off West Street for standard room rates to utilize during emergency situations.

Um on your right there, there is a by department breakdown of hotel costs.

Um so we coordinated all of that.

There was a total of about 50 um bookings that we made.

We did use um every department paid for their own.

Um we were doing you know, cost codes and looking at um what we're gonna do and how we're gonna charge it to the winter storm if that is the case.

Um, but the total city cost overall was 12,010 and 68 cents.

So that second paragraph would have talked about improves coordination and streamlined decision making.

That's uh OEM speak for if they were home, they might not be able to get back to the city of Annapolis.

So we had to keep them in hotel so they would be ready for their ships, and that's the premise behind all of this.

Does that 12,000 include feeding them?

Or just the hotel accommodation?

Just the hotels.

Yeah, but we um EOC operations we pay for for food, make sure everybody was fed because they couldn't get out.

So another big uh focus for the storm was supporting our vulnerable populations.

Um the left there, the special assistance roster.

Um it's a registry maintained by OEM.

Um it identifies residents who may need additional support before or during during or after emergencies.

Um so this is voluntary and confidential.

Um and its partners conduct special assistant roster checks during the storm and register new individuals throughout the event.

Um, and residents can sign up by calling the OEM mainline at 410-216-9167 or emailing OEM at Annapolis.gov.

And that's for anybody that's like needs dialysis or special assistance.

Special assistance of any kind.

Correct.

And we did receive calls over that, and we coordinated within the OC to make sure that people got to appointments if if needed or got medication if there was something from the pharmacy that they needed.

Thank you.

And you mentioned you mentioned food and folks who working.

You've seen some 11-hour shifts in the EOC, and we had to make sure everybody was fed.

So we did get considerable donations of food.

We had donations from Chick-fil-A, Mission Barbecue, Knights of Columbus, and Papa John.

So I want to give all of them a shout out for helping us out.

That's fantastic.

I had a quick question about the volunteers for the snow.

We do want to thank our Navy midshipmen for supporting us there.

Now how were they dispersed in the city?

Was it mainly in a specific area?

Was it a on-call?

You know, we need you over here today.

How was that been?

And I'll share why in the moment if you'll I can speak to that.

Um so they had some limitations in that they weren't allowed to drive vehicles around the city during the height of the storm.

So the the strategy with the volunteer midshipment has always been to shovel in the area around gate one where it's heavily residential, densely packed in, and there's so many properties and and folks in need that use their services, they had more than enough work, and and um they went out in shifts mostly on the Sunday, the 25th when the snow fell.

Um there were they were in teams and they did three hour shifts throughout the day.

So I think there were three three-hour shifts, a total of uh 15 or 17 individuals, if I'm recalling correctly.

Um there were a couple cases where people would call into the call center and say, hey, I have a someone particularly in need, they're maybe unable to shovel their walk.

And if it was sort of in the vicinity, we'd call over there and say, Hey, can you direct the midshipment to two or three blocks away, you know, within reason um to go for the specific address.

So we did target that as best we could, but for the most part, they had to follow their obviously their military schedule with formation and certain points where that were where they had to take care of that, and then they would shovel after that in the area around gate one.

Yeah, as I know a lot of these public housing communities, and this is something that I'll be working to change, they were barely held um liable for them not shoveling the sidewalks in some of the driveways for the elderly population, particularly in my ward.

And so I think it's um important that if it's not going to be the the midshipmen that if we do have volunteers that we do our best to maybe um send them out in the other parts of the city and not just for just in war one just going back to the middle piece, so just to reiterate on the winter relief program.

Um during this event, the warming center was open for 204 continuous hours of operation.

Um during that time, we had 464 patron visits.

Um so we do shine sign-in sheets every every activation, so every 12-hour period uh morning and night.

Um so 464 people uh visited the warming center at that time.

Or there were 464 visits.

Um a lot of those patrons ended up staying most of the time, if not all of the time.

Um and then multiple activations exceeded 31 plus patrons, which required an additional staff member to be called in, and our staffing costs just for that eight week uh eight-day period was eight thousand seven hundred and forty dollars.

So Alderman, you talked about helping the elderly and and volunteering.

Things got so hectic, and we couldn't find someone to actually shovel out a senior, so actually Patrick.

Thank you.

Went out there and took care of it.

So, you know, we we have to be agile, we have to be fluid in the office of emergency management.

So, in the sake of time, I'm gonna go ahead and move on to the last part of this to talk about messaging priorities and invite Katrina up here, sitting next to me.

Lucky.

I hope so.

Okay.

Um, I'm Karina Rosenbaum.

I'm the training exercise and outreach coordinator and public information officer.

Um so I'm gonna talk a bit about what some of our messaging priorities were before, throughout, and um, and as we were cleaning up after the storm.

So prior to the event, uh, we were focusing on making sure that we were communicating the forecasts, the hazards, and what people could do to stay safe.

So we're sharing um national weather service information, um cold weather um protection tips, you know, um making sure people knew what what to do far ahead of the storm so that they had adequate time to um adequate time to take action.

Um throughout the storm, we were focusing on making sure that we're informing residents of service continuity and providing timely updates on things like city closures, um the evolving sidewalk rules, um, updates on garage parking, um, transit, and anything else that we were seeing that um we were getting a lot of calls about or that we were seeing a lot of interest about.

And we are also focusing on operational transparency, so doing our best to highlight what was going on in the EOC, demonstrate some of the work that various agencies were doing, both to build trust, but also to combat rumors and misinformation and provide a little bit more um insight into what was happening in the EOC.

So prior to the event, um, about five days out, we made sure to put out our initial forecast updates and some preparedness actions, just sharing that um there was you know the possibility of this storm coming.

Once the governor put out a state of preparedness, that was something that we echoed as well.

And then on Friday the 23rd, that's when the National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning and a cold weather advisory, and we made sure to push that across all of our um social media platforms and our various messaging platforms.

And on Saturday, when the phase two parking restriction was made, we put out a voice call that went across to all residents, making sure that everybody knew when that um parking restriction was going to go into effect.

So when I say we're putting it out across all platforms, we have a Facebook account, X and next door, and then we're also sending out texts, mass texts, emails, and voice calls through the alert Annapolis mass notification system, and we put out alerts through our mobile app, the Prepare Me Annapolis app.

So on Sunday, once the snowfall started, we reposted a video put out by the mayor's office with Chief Simmons talking about some of the things that people could do to get ready, and that was something that um that residents really enjoyed and continued to highlight what was going on throughout through the EOC.

Um as the as we were moving into cleanup and recovery, we were making sure to share any updates to parking, especially if we were seeing a high influx of calls come in or seeing a high influx of questions coming in from residents.

We were doing our best to be proactive in addressing those, um addressing those concerns through our messaging.

And alongside all the content that we were putting out, we made sure to be amplifying messages from the mayor's office and from um other essential departments as much as possible.

So to show a little bit of our reach, um, Facebook was the platform identified here because it has um the most representative and the most comprehensive data available.

However, these statistics were pretty much mirrored across all the platforms, so the um content that received the most engagement was pretty similar across all platforms.

So across the period of the storm from the 21st to the 30th, we put out 14 different posts, not including um content that we were resharing, and we saw almost 40,000 unique viewers taking a look at those, and that was almost um about 67,000 total views.

So what that really showed is that people are sharing and revisiting our content.

They're coming back and looking at it and making sure that they're getting the right information, making note of those tips.

Um people were engaging with it, commenting, um, letting us know that they appreciated what we were putting out.

And what we saw by the top posts is that um residents really seemed to enjoy getting that inside look at what was going on in the EOC.

Our top post was highlighting our call center operations.

So we shared some photos of our folks in the call center taking calls and um and explaining what that process looks like.

And I think for a lot of the residents who are kind of just hearing a voice on the other side of the phone, this was really helpful in um in showing the behind the scenes.

And these are just um highlights of some of the um photos and some of the images that we put out throughout the week.

So we made sure to highlight our um the National Guard, uh the governor's visit to the EOC, um, and all the different activities that were happening within the EOC and within you know the call center and throughout throughout the event.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

That is exactly what I wanted.

Um I set out uh a few weeks ago and talked with Kevin and said I really wanted to have an overview so that the public really knows what you guys do, how you do it, and why you do it.

Um and I think it's really important for the public to understand how our public safety divisions work and work for them.

Um when they have complaints or kudos or whatnot.

I really think that you putting a face and a strategic plan behind all of that is really helpful for people to understand how our city works.

So I appreciate all the effort you put in.

It was a really great slideshow.

And can you share that slide deck with us and the rest of the council?

That would be fantastic.

Um I think that it's good for us as a resource when we do go in and are meeting with our constituents to be able to say this is exactly what goes into some of the planning that you see, whether it's fun festivals and parades or not so fun snowstorm events, other type of weather events, um, that we have the support of your staff and the knowledge and expertise of your staff really paying attention to every detail.

So thank you.

Thank you.

And I want to thank the public safety committee for their support, uh, not only now but over the years that I've been here.

I'd also like to thank my public safety partners, uh, the fire department and police department, Chief Romali, and and Chief Miguez, because um I I think that we have about the best uh public safety in in Maryland.

I agree.

The three.

I agree.

Do I have anything from my colleagues?

Anything to say or add?

Yes, yeah.

All right.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate you all coming and enjoy the rest of your evening.

Thank you.

I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

I move to adjourn.

Second.

Oh, second.

All in favor say aye.

All right, blessings.

Hi, all right, meeting adjourned.