And for that I am deeply grateful.

And as a migraine sufferer, I'm really grateful at all and migrant today.

So all things are pointing up, y'all.

So today we have firefighter Alan Green with us as part of a two-part public safety update.

When he heard us discussing the fact from Chief Hyman that we had seen some house fires increasing.

This council, myself included, asked some questions about, hey, what's going on with that?

That's weird.

And so he actually been doing some research already on that and doing some education, I think around it.

So wanted to invite him to come and share with us about that.

So now that I do have a quorum, can I get a motion on the minutes from our previous meeting?

So second.

All right, we have motion of proper seconds and the minutes will stand without objection.

All right, take it away.

Well, again, I appreciate y'all for allowing me to come and speak today.

I am Alan Green.

If you haven't met me, you probably heard about me or see me.

Talking a lot about fire prevention education.

That's pretty much my big thing.

So before I get started, I like to always kind of give a brief overview of my why.

Why I do something, why it's important to me.

So about a little over three years ago, before I got this position, I was sitting in an interview with the chiefs, and two questions that stood out was uh one of them was what rewards are you looking for with this position?

And the other one was what challenges are you looking for?

And my response to what rewards was I I'm not looking for any rewards.

I have plenty of rewards, accolades from the things I do in my personal life before I was even applying for this position.

I said the reward would be for firefighters to go home every day.

Um also for our community to be more safer.

That will be the rewards that I would be looking for.

Now the challenge is I said the challenges are not going to be for me.

The challenge is going to be for the whole department.

It's not a me, it's a we.

What I mean by that is to see our department be more engaged and involved in the community, which we have done that tremendously, and also to give back more to the community.

I like to put it this way, um, put the community back in community fire department and put the fire department back in the community.

You know, a lot of people understand that, uh, but I think we do a great job of that have been doing for a long time.

But those are my two uh questions that I always stood out.

That's my why to uh fire and life safety education, fire prevention, why this is really really important to me uh to serve and make sure our community is more safe.

So with that said, again, I'm Alan Green.

I'm the fire life safety educator for the attending fire department.

I'm also the community risk reduction and community outreach chair for the International Association of Black Professional Firefighters.

So the things I do is not just locally, it's a state, national level, um a little bit of international level as well.

So community risk reduction.

I know these terms uh has been coming up a lot lately, and it's to me it's kind of sad that it's not as prevalent in Chattanooga as it is around the country with other fire departments and some of my colleagues that I speak to on the regular about what is community risk reduction.

Um some of them have the vision, some of them don't.

Some of them are working towards having community risk reduction divisions, especially as a coordinator.

So what community risk reduction is is a strategic proactive approach that aims to prioritize risk within the community.

Then you implement those strategies to put to mitigate or prevent those risks.

It's not traditional, meaning we are looking at a broader range of potential hazards, natural disasters, public health issues, and other safety concerns.

So when people ask you, well, what does the fire department have to do with youth gun violence?

That's a public health issue.

We are mentors, we're father, we're uncles, we're cousins, mothers.

We have a lot to do with public health issues when it comes down to those areas.

So in a nutshell, that's what community risk reduction is.

Now, an assessment to a plan.

First, we start with a community risk reduction assessment.

What that is is we will look in the community, boost to the ground.

It's not one of those situations where you can sit behind a desk and figure out what's going on.

You have to get out there, talk to people, interact, engage, really listen to the community partners of what's going on, and then they will help you identify what those risks are.

Then you identify the risks within that community to enhance safety and preparedness.

Focus it on understanding hazards, vulnerabilities, and the capability of the community to respond effectively.

As you all know, we're looking at that right now with the flood, right?

So we will conduct an assessment.

With that assessment, we would devise a plan, which would be the community risk reduction plan.

Same thing.

We will identify and mitigate the risk to enhance safety and resilience with the community.

Resilience meaning the ability to recover.

We are in that now.

How we're gonna recover from what just happened.

What are our measures that we're gonna put in place?

It's a strategic framework used by local governments, emergency services, and community organizations.

Not just local governments, but at the state level, we have a state representative who is a community risk reduction coordinator for the whole state of Tennessee at the national level.

You know, when you think about FEMA, they do community risk reduction all the time.

So it's not just local government.

Now, a community risk reduction assessment or community risk reduction plan means nothing if we don't put that plan into action.

And the people I work with, as you see them in their class B's, the real firefighters, as I like to say, um, those are the people that come off ship and work with myself and some other firefighters to get this in action, to turn this plan into action.

Um that's what we're trying to do now when we start looking at data and what's going on in our community.

The community risk reduction plans, these are the six core components of what a community risk reduction plan is gonna require.

These are the steps.

Step one, you gotta identify the risks, prioritize, prioritize those risks, develop strategies and tactics to mitigate those risks, prepare the community risk reduction plan, implement the community risk reduction plan, monitor, evaluate, and modify the plan that you see fit.

This is not an overnight thing.

You know how they say uh you don't turn a battleship around in one turn, it don't happen.

So we are looking at data that may take a year, two years, three years to really get it done.

Some of them may take a little less depending on what the risks are and what we're trying to change and modify.

The five E's of CRR, these will be pretty much be considered our strategies and tactics that we use.

We would take one or maybe all five of these um five E's and figure out a way to implement them in the plan.

We may not use all of them, we may use one.

Right now, we lean heavily on education.

Heavy.

We do know we can always do education.

That's what we do 365, sometimes 366 days out of the year.

In my field, I like to say education is the foundation to prevention.

You don't believe me, look it up.

Um, so on the other end with merger response, that's what we do in the fire department, probably 80-90% of the time.

We're on emergency response.

We're being responsive, we've been reactive because we don't always know what's going to happen.

I'm under the fire prevention bureau, so I work to get on the front end.

And with CRR, we like to say getting ahead of the call.

And that's what we're trying to get more into is getting ahead so we don't have to be so much on the other end of being responsive, uh, which we know we'll never stop being, you know, immersive responsible.

Never.

But these are the five E's that we try to uh implement within the plan.

Tell me if I'm going too fast.

No, you're crazy.

All right.

Now, this is the unofficial E of community risk reduction.

It has not been adopted yet, but I like to bring this up.

I use it a lot in my presentations with uh elementary school kids, all the way up to senior citizens.

They don't change.

Pretty much, I don't want to come, even here in this meeting, have a conversation with you all, and we don't do anything about it.

Then we're not being empowered at all.

Even people that's out there in the TV world that's watching online.

It does me no good to have this conversation.

If I don't leave here and feel like somebody's gonna do something about it.

We did a um fire state training at UTC for the RAs last week.

And I was a bit skeptical at first because I said these are a lot of kids that know a lot about everything or a lot about nothing.

Forgive me, please.

But when we left, I felt really good because they asked questions, they were really engaged, and you know how that population can be.

They let me know they was in power and feel in power.

They're gonna go tell somebody, do something about it.

And this is my saying, and I probably gonna coin it.

Um information without application is just a conversation.

I don't like going places just to have a conversation.

I need some application if I'm gonna give you some information.

So that's what the empowerment is to focus on enhancing the capacity of individuals and groups to actively participate in decision making processes to affect their lives and environments.

That's what essentially we try to do, you all every single Tuesday and in between, right?

Um sometimes they don't work out, but we we try to earn it out.

So that's the empowerment.

Now, this slide here, I'm not even, I'm gonna ask the question anyway.

What is the number one uh reason we run residential structure fires?

Cooking fires.

Thank you.

I gave you the end.

So that is correct.

And that is not me making that up.

That is not me putting that on there just to put it on there.

That is correct.

And that's just not a Chattanooga factor that is across the country.

Uh but the U.S.

fire administration has identified cooking as the leading cause of residential building fires or fires and structures.

Makes sense.

That is it.

And this is going to shock you all because it shocked me when I found out this next part.

So I don't know.

Um we sat down a little, probably about two years ago with the state fire marshal office, Jay Westbrook.

At that time, Jay was the community risk reduction coordinator for the state of Tennessee.

So somehow he got in touch with our department and said, Hey, I would like to come down and talk to y'all about your community risk reduction assessment.

So knowing what I know and what I love and what I'm passionate about, I said, that's fine with me.

Uh never heard of Jay, never had much interaction with the state fire marshal's office.

But I said, let's do it.

So he came down a couple times and we sat in the comfort room and talked.

He said, This is what I have.

The national average at that time was for cooking fires was 22%.

Of 22% of what?

22% cooking.

Of total fires.

Uh-huh.

Cooking fires.

Residential fires, 22% was accounted to cooking fires.

Okay.

So we were at 16%.

16%.

And I said, wow, that's a huge number.

I said, something's going wrong with Chattanooga.

We it must be we can't cook.

I don't know.

I don't know what it was due to.

But we were less.

We were 16%.

But the national average was 22.

So national average was higher.

It was higher, but we led the state.

Oh, okay, led the state.

So, and I've been, I want to get those numbers to show you all, but that's what stuck out in my head when Jay said this is why it's important to do a community risk reduction assessment and buy into what we're trying to do at the state level.

Um, so with it when I got those numbers from Jay and we talked about it, he sat there and said, No, now that you have this information, we need somebody to champion this.

Who's gonna be the champion?

Who's gonna lead the charge to get this done?

And I was sitting there because I would um two or three captains, so I sat there, I said, I don't know, I'm gonna be quiet.

I'm a firefighter, so let me sit back and see how this goes.

But lo and behold, your passion always overrides what you don't want to do.

So that's how I ended up going this route with really, really digging into community risk reduction.

Oh, so with that assessment, uh, we really didn't move forward at that point with Jay because we didn't have the staffing for it.

Um it was myself at that point with uh um off, well, it wasn't off do, but it was out of the company at that point on IOD, was helping me out a lot.

So we went from two um people helping out to several people, as you can see in the room now, trying to get it done.

So we wasn't really effective in trying to implement the plan.

So I had to go back recently and start looking at and say, hey, I really want to try to get this done.

I really would like to see us develop a community risk reduction plan and put it into action.

So this is just um some numbers I looked up.

From 2023, we had 222 fires and structures.

42 of those fires in 2023 was cooking fires.

Um 18.92% of fires.

In 2024, we had 304 fires and structures.

73 of those fires was cooking fires.

Um that's 24.0%.

Now I don't want to look too much at the percentages, but looking at the numbers and the increase in the fires.

And the cooking fires.

Both went up.

That's that's important for us to know that.

And I think as I look right now, we're probably when Chief Hyman was here, we showed that in 2025 we were at 422 cooking fires.

Not cooking fires, but fires and structures.

I don't know if y'all remember that part, but that stuck out to me as I started looking at the numbers.

So that was just a uh brief overview of the community risk reduction assessment that we conducted.

Now, looking at the cooking fires by zip code, which prompted me to reach out to my new good friend here, Councilwoman Birds, uh, for 37421.

But we look at all zip codes on this screen for year 2023.

You can see in 37421, they had a look like about 13 cooking fires.

Then 2024, they had 12 cooking fires.

Yeah, it went down a little bit, but it was still relatively high, right?

And we can look at some other zip codes and see what's going on.

There's an upward trend or a downward trend, and those are things that my team and myself will start looking at after today to try to figure out okay which direction do we want to go truly and honestly, what would make the most sense to start really hammering down on.

Every uh from the brow here.

Yeah, we're 304.

So I don't know who doing some who's not cooking right in the district.

Yeah, y'all need to get together and figure that out.

Yeah, it's just more true.

Okay, so for my heart's district.

Yeah, East Brain is gonna send the time.

I will just say that's bringing your grade.

Because I'm trying to see what district age she said, we're burning it up.

Y'all burn it enough too.

That's what she said.

I didn't see that.

I'm burning it up.

So it's interestingly because almost every step.

Or if not every time.

From the prior year, everybody went on.

Yeah, so that's interesting.

It's really interesting as you can see from 23 to 24, it did go up.

It did.

And so for us and the team that we're trying to uh, what we're trying to do in the fire department, we really trying to dig into these numbers and see why it went up.

What's the why?

We know there's a problem.

We know that.

But we need to know why there's a problem.

Get to the root of why.

You know, uh, why are these numbers going up?

That way we can devise a plan.

If it's undertened cooking, or people coming home after work at night cooking, then we start putting out different messages and say, okay, don't cook at night, or don't cook when you sleep.

Pay attention to what you cook and keep an eye on what you fry.

Those types of messages what we we develop, but we don't want to just develop a cookie cutter plan, and that's not what's going on, what's causing these fires.

That's a bad deal.

Bad deal.

So that's why I say it takes time to really figure out how we're going to do this.

Now, I not to pick on y'all two, um, Councilman Harvey and Councilwoman Burke, okay?

It's just an example.

Everybody's good with that.

That's all right.

Don't get on to me when I leave.

So 37421 for the last two years had the highest number of cooking fires.

42 cooking fires in Chattanooga was the total number.

14 of those fires, cooking fires was in the 37421 zip code.

Um, and then going down to 2024, 73 total cooking fires in Chattanooga.

73.

73.

12 of those were at 37421.

So again, I know the numbers went down a little bit in 37421, but they were still the highest out of all the other zip codes, and we just about doubled in cooking fires.

Now, again, we would have to go back and look at the data, read reports and figure out, okay, what really happened.

Because this don't tell the whole story, but I want to give you all something to really think about and say, okay, something's going on.

But they are working on it.

They are they are trying to get something done.

Does this include like outdoor grilling type fires or strictly in the house?

This is strictly in structures.

Oh, sir.

Instructions.

Fires instructions.

I just tried to put it on grills over here, man.

No, people get the grills off the porch too.

That's what I think.

I'm not judging nobody.

I'm just saying, I ride through everybody's house.

I figured it was a grill on the porch.

I'm gonna do some door knocking.

If I see a grill on the porch and it looked like it's been, we're gonna do some talk.

Yeah, I don't know.

But they're not my point.

So it is.

With that said, when we look at the assessment, you know, it's it's safe to say, well, what's the plan?

We know that's a problem, and for me, I don't like being brought problems with no solutions, right?

I know it's a problem.

But how how we get to the plan?

How do we put that plan in action?

So, what's the plan?

Chattanooga Fire Department Community Risk Reduction Plan.

We have already identified what the risk are.

So we work.

We trying to put it, we actually we're putting it in action because we identified the plan.

We are a part, we have a prioritize the risk.

And now what my team and myself and the fire department, what we're going to do is we're going to develop strategies and tactics to mitigate those risks.

And it's gonna take a huge collaboration that everybody putting their minds together.

It's not an Alan Green thing.

It's not.

So please understand that that's not what I'm trying to project or convey that message that this is just me all about me.

It's not.

It's a team, it's us working together.

It's gonna be a lot of people sitting down, figuring it out and exchanging ideals.

Um so that's that's the plan here.

Next step is gonna be the strategies and tactics to mitigate those risks.

Then we'll prepare the community risk reduction plan and then implement that community risk reduction plan, monitor, evaluate, and modify as we see fit.

And we would definitely keep y'all up to date on where we are in our metrics and what we're doing.

Now, out of the whole presentation, this is probably my favorite one.

This right here.

So this is my good friend, I like to say my my other mother.

Um, and she's aware that I was gonna show this today.

Miss Carrie Harris.

And I told her, she said, Well, I'm glad you told them because I didn't want to be shocked when everybody in my neighborhood called me and say I saw you on YouTube.

I didn't want her mad at me.

She gave me a Father's Day card, and I need another one.

So anyway, this is our community risk reduction in action.

Let's turn to the Chattanooga Fire Department when she needed help getting fresh batteries for the smoke alarm in her Woodmore home.

I had knee surgery.

And there's things about knee surgery that you can't get on ladders and things anymore.

And I didn't have anybody else to do it for me.

Senior firefighter Alan Green, the CFD's fire and life safety educator, brought over batteries for the smoke alarm near her bedrooms and added two additional devices right outside her kitchen for more protection.

In a matter of days, the smoke alarms did their job.

Harris and her daughter were sleeping when she heard them going off.

I lit a candle in my kitchen.

You know, just want to make sure that smelled good.

Okay.

Twelve hours later the next morning.

I just thought it was my mom's system, but it wasn't.

It was the firearm.

Went off and I had a fire going in my kitchen where the candle was not put out completely.

I just took everything and threw it in the sink.

And when I threw it in the sink and run one on it, the blaze started.

So I just taken the cloth and just covered it up.

And I was so thankful that I was able to save my life and my daughter's life.

Because if not, we would have been the part of the house completely destroyer.

Now, Miss Harris is urging citizens to make sure they have functioning smoke alarms.

We need to be safe.

If we're not safe, we we may as well forget it.

And I wouldn't ever think that they were gonna come in and just put a battery in and look at the results of what happened.

And I am so thankful to the fire department.

I stopped by 10 on.

Okay.

So that that is the essence in the crux of the matter.

You know, when I when I answered those questions almost three over three years ago, what would be the challenges and the rewards?

And I I say that's proof of what we set out to do is make our community safer.

Some simple as replacing a battery.

And she argued me up and down about that.

Because she didn't want it right there in the place I put it.

Right outside of the battery.

Now they put it in the kitchen.

But I said, I would suggest you go right here, Miss Hammer.

Okay, okay, all right.

And she called me two, three days later, a week later, said, thank you.

But that is what we try to do is make our community safe.

Um at the heart of everything.

And it takes a lot to do that.

And, you know, I was I was grateful, even just for this position.

I was talking with the team yesterday, and um, and I heard it in the sermon about you got careers and you got callings, right?

Which one are you operating in?

A career or a call?

Some of us we have no choice but to be in the career, but I've been fortunate and blessed enough to operate in duality.

My career is my calling.

You know, every day I come to work.

I don't feel like I'm coming to work.

I feel like I'm coming to a calling because that's who I am through and through.

And I enjoy it with the little kids that just write the nose on men, cry on men.

The senior city that talk to me about their daughters.

And ask me if I'm married.

You know, I enjoy it.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Do you have any questions from council before we start handing out tender codes here?

No, no.

He's a married man, man.

No, no, no, that's not it.

So any any questions, no, no codes.

Councilman Dolly and then councilman first.

Uh first, thank you for the work that you do.

I appreciate uh all the work that you all do, and this is the kind of provincial side of it that we really like.

So my question, uh, you mentioned earlier that uh the individual the the firefighters that work with you, they work outside of their regular fire hours.

Is that what you were saying?

Are they volunteering?

No, no, no.

We've been blessed to be able to um we call it special assignment.

Okay.

Compensation.

Okay, special assignment.

Okay, now it don't they don't even think about the money really.

Right, right.

I had to force it all.

Well, we appreciate their service as well.

So that it was that, and then if you could email us the presentation.

Okay.

Okay, that's it.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

And you can send that to Nicole.

Okay.

And Sean Kenneth all that's okay.

Councilman Burst.

Uh in one of the slides, you mentioned the the economic incentives, you know, for communities to get involved with what your what your action is gonna be.

Is there um uh is there grant funding like through the state or national organizations to help fund some of that stuff?

Once you get to that point, I'm just trying to think ahead that when you all come up with an action plan, yes, where that funding might come from, and are are there opportunities that you're aware of?

So grants they come out every so often at the national level, and we are working with Merricay Appy at uh with the National Fire uh U.S.

you know, fire academy of administration and what she has done for us in the past with smoke alarms.

I've I've been in part of that before when you went house to house.

Yes, so she she will apply for these grants based off the work that we're doing and program.

So right now we are running, we're trying to gear up for the sound off program, and it's a three-day educational program targeted for second and third graders.

So, with that said, we would do three days in elementary school for three different lessons that build on each other, and we get free smoke alarms to install in the homes of the participants.

So those are the type of grants that she will work on, and she will intentionally and strategically identify departments that's doing the work in the communities in regards to that specific program.

Now, there are other organizations that we partner with where they may say we're doing the climate for safety uh program.

And um, what that is is they try to get money and grants to buy fire window escape ladders.

And then they will hand those out as part of the community outreach and fire life safety education and events like that.

So there are grants out there that come across every so often, and I'm in the cohort um uh network that they send a bunch of information through to me and say, hey, do you all know about this?

Do you all know about that?

So that's why I go to a lot of conferences around community risk reduction and fire life safety education, because that's where I can get the information that you're asking about and break it back like, hey, I heard about the smart burners.

They got grants for smart burners to help control cooking fires.

Good answer your question.

Yeah, because I think it's important that that's that doesn't become prohibitive once you've got your action plan ready to go, that it's it's not held back because you know we don't have we don't have the funding to do it.

And I know that as tight as we're you know, everybody's talking about funding these days.

So I think it's important to have a plan so when you're ready to to go out in the community and say this is what we want to do to reduce the fires, that you've got some resources either in the works or already on hand to to be able to do it.

It doesn't hold you back.

And then the other question I have is, and I I think I know the answer, but I just want to make sure when you respond to where somebody responds to a fire, you all have to document what the cause of the fire is.

So that's that's where you're able to take go back and take that information and segment it into it was in the kitchen and they were cooking whatever, and the grease caught the fire, so you're able to really narrow it down with some extra time, some man or woman power, yes, narrowing it down to say these are the highest incident, whether it's grease fire or whatever.

And so that is correct.

So I I don't really look at I don't look at the reports, and that's why like now we're gonna take time to go back and read the reports so we can wrap our head around okay, this was a kitchen fire contained to a pan or a pot.

Okay, or this was a cooking fire that was due to Greece splattering out.

Uh and we are actually going to transition to a new system.

Come, I think January Chief, the new system, the point system.

Oh, perfect.

Yeah, we're getting first years.

So we'll get a new system nearest and it it'd be easier to navigate and actually read and say, okay.

Sort that data.

Right, right, right, right.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks for all you're doing, and thank you for putting this presentation together.

Councilman Harvey and I are like, oh, we got to get to work on that's how those kitchen.

Thank you, Chairwoman.

Any other questions?

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

We appreciate it.

We are gonna talk about the flood response next and recovery reporting.

Well, I'm gonna get out this seat because it don't feel good.

Basically, what you write Darren, are you here?

You are not it looks like Darren strides.

I'm gonna drive today.

Welcome back to the table.

Hello.

How are you?

I am good.

There we go.

So we have Darren here today.

Um talked with us about the flood response and recovery from last week.

How crazy was last week.

It was a week ago today.

It was.

And I will tell you it reminded me of another 12th, which was April 12th, 2020.

When the tornado of F3 power ripped through the East Brainerd and then Hamilton in the District 49, and it reminded me of the response of our our city, our first responders are volunteers, everyone or faith-based organizations.

Once again, we're seeing that that level of commitment from everyone.

And I'm telling you, we're we should be we should be very blessed to live in the area we have with the incredible volunteers and first responders that we have.

So if you will allow me, we're gonna bring up department uh experts who will walk through the slides and I'll try to move as quickly as possible.

The premise of this is to provide you with kind of a quick overview, but as much data as possible.

You do have these uh we shared these with you earlier this presentation.

So basically, I'm gonna read this slide and then we're gonna move into a much faster pace.

If uh Madam Chair and Madam Vice Chair, if that's okay with you.

All right, this presentation will cover what we knew and what we did not know, how we responded appropriately and quickly to ensure the safety of the public and the ongoing recovery efforts across departments, how hundreds of city employees responded to hundreds of calls for service and help from our neighboring governments and our people at significant but manageable expense.

While there was one death within the city limits attributed to this historic event, the heroics of our first responders, police fire in our public works and wastewater folks can't be understated.

There are lessons to be learned from this event, especially as it pertains to the ongoing I-24 work, which you all saw a lot of conversation from Mayor Kelly, and we do not have all the answers yet, but rest assured, we will get the answers and be even more responsive and effective as a city government when we face this type of event ever again.

So we are lucky to have our own meteorologist Brian Smith.

I don't have a green screen for you, Brian.

I do not have a clicker.

Are you gonna be okay?

I'm okay.

It's all right.

It's been a while since I've done a green screen.

Brian, would you please tell us what happened?

Absolutely, too.

And uh I just want to say real quickly too, but this um before I get into this, thank you, Alan, and uh for the hundreds of also smoke alarms that you put in.

It's got uh sound the alarm with Red Cross coming up as well, and I've had the pleasure of uh helping him out for a couple years with that.

So thank you with that.

So uh, real quickly, uh, a couple things that happened here the day uh of this uh really unprecedented event.

Uh a couple things of uh completely caught off guard or what we knew and and so forth.

Uh there was a chance of heavy rain for that particular day.

Uh, there was without going too much into the synoptic scale of this, uh, there was also a chance of heavy rain as well as isolated flash flooding.

Uh and when you look at the grand scale of everything that was set up, it wasn't too out of the normal of a of a regular afternoon when we have you know pop-up thunderstorms that could drop very heavy rain at any amount of time.

Uh what made this really unusual is that when the storms were developing, they were drifting from a southwest to a northeast uh particular motion.

And I was actually at council last uh Tuesday when I started following the radar and noticing that one cell that uh just did not want to budge.

Now I know there are a few members of the EOC that were already at the office, we'd already received a little bit of information earlier in the day from the National Weather Service, but overall it was not a heightened alert.

Uh the threat for flash flooding was in that slight risk.

There were no flood or flash flood watches that were in effect for that day from the National Weather Service.

So while I wouldn't say it was a normal day, it was a little bit elevated with the chance of uh heavy rain.

Seeing something like this is of course very unprecedented.

But around 5 30 or so, 5 15, I did start alerting EOC.

I am on work for them when it comes to weather, and started letting a few folks know that this cell was beginning to stall, and we are already starting to have some problems.

And then, of course, right after that, it just sort of escalated.

To have rain rates of six to nine inches an hour is absolutely amazing.

We've had tropical downpours here, and we've had minor flash floods in a few areas here before.

Uh but that's about where that rain rate was, and then also to have uh five and a half inches in three hours is quite a bit of rain.

But two, we had rain during the day earlier, so we've already had up to an inch of rain before this all started to happen and unfold.

Uh, one thing that's about this particular area, and you kind of see circled here at 6.52.

The last time that we had anything close to that was Tropical Storm and Lee.

And you see here uh the record back in 2013.

This was not associated with a tropical storm.

Yes, it was tropical moisture, but it was not a landfalling hurricane or a tropical storm that moved over here.

Usually when that happens, you're more or less on high alert.

So and then my particular role after that is just serving as how much longer is the rain going to last.

I spoke with Chief, a few other folks here from EOC just to kind of give them an update of where that particular rain was.

Also, one other sort of misconception about that particular area, it floods a lot.

That area is prone because there is the South Chickamauga Creek that will rise and flood those areas.

That's part of the reason why we have a golf course there.

Um, however, in this particular situation, this was not a river flood.

This was an unprecedented large amount of heavy rain that all fell at one particular time.

I've been over 20 years, have been doing weather for 20 years.

I've never seen anything happen like that in that area.

The only other time I could think of something of this particular magnitude was in Saudi Daisy several years ago when we had almost 13 inches of rain.

Um that was uh maybe 10, 12 years ago I'd look at that exact same date.

So I'm more or less here to say very rare event, and once we saw that this was developing what it was, it's amazing the action that took place after you know, we saw this was gonna be a big problem, and that's off to you know the hundreds of people that were a part of that.

So, but I'll kind of leave it at that and turn over to the next couple of slides.

All right, thank you, Brian.

So now that we have a brief overview of what happened, I think it is important to understand how did we respond?

So if it could Chief Boat Wright, you come up and talk a little bit about what the ICS is and how it works.

I think this will give us a really good understanding.

Uh so just introduction or introduction.

My name's Rick Boat Right.

I'm the operation chief from the fire department.

Been here 27 years, been in the current row, going on eight years.

So had several opportunities to work with incident command from the very start of our career.

This is one of the things that's kind of hammered into us as first responders.

This is the framework of how we respond to any type of them.

From the smallest, maybe EMS call or citizen assist call up to the largest scale incident like the 2020 tournaments.

So we have framework that's set in place, what we call by the national incident management system.

NAMS.

Uh every one of our first responders go through.

That's the framework that develops our firefighters, our emergency responders, and how we operate on every type of incident.

So we're all speaking the same language.

Um, when we go through these type uh incidents, we have different stages, different levels of it.

So you may have an engine company arrive on the scene right off the bat.

That company officer will establish an initial incident command.

They are the ones that are in charge of that incident that are directing the resources and assessing the scene to see what is needed.

Um as they assess it, they will gather that information, relay it to our dispatch centers.

If the incident needs to grow in the case of the floods this past are we were starting to get incident commanders in different areas of the city reporting that these floods.

Our battalion chief then established a centralized command post.

Um what he did from there, he directed those different operations and brought in additional resources to meet the needs of the incidents that were going on throughout the city.

So these resources come in from all over the place.

Um we had Brainerd, or excuse me, Bradley County, Cleveland, Howland County STARS, uh we alerted them through our Tri-State Mutual Aid Association.

So along with CPD, THP, TOT, all of this was coordinated through our EFC.

But the structure expanded to meet the needs.

Once we can meet the needs, and we had a few, I like to say we need as many resources sitting on the bench as we do have playing out in the field.

That way we can, you know, if other calls come in, we've got those resources available.

We had that at the Brainerd Rec Center, was where we had our staging area.

So the system expanded.

Once we started meeting all those needs, everything started calming down.

We started de-scaling our incident and the incident command system de-scaled to that level, and we started assisting with the shelter events on that.

So just the overview.

This is the framework, the incident command system that all of the first responders all across the United States operate under.

So you'll stay at the helm for me and talk a little bit about our agencies and how many possibly this is obviously a representation of what we what we have responding, but there are others obviously that are woven into the fabric of response.

So we had uh not only the ones you see pictured on the screen, we had Signal Mountain, Red Bank, Bradley County, Cleveland, our tri-state partners.

Um I'm trying to think of many others that we'd call then.

I think that that was pretty much it.

Um, and a lot of these other agencies too, like Bradley and Cleveland, they have swift water rescue teams as well.

Um a lot of you seen the pictures of I-24 where you see the car swelling around.

Okay, if you look at the water, it's pretty calm on the top of it.

But the current underneath that was being drawn by that drain was enough to move a car around just like a toy.

So you have to have these specialized resources, and you have to have that forethought and not wait till we need them.

Get them, get them coming when you've you realize you need some assistance.

Very good.

Any questions so far, madam chairman and vice chair members?

Okay, we'll keep Chief Chambers available.

All right, we're gonna go over China Police real quick.

Uh, Chief Knowles, I know you're in the house.

Yes.

So if you don't mind, sir.

You have the floor.

Yeah.

So Chattanooga Fire Department responded incredibly like they always do.

So, like Chief uh Boatright was talking about, the first captain arrived on the scene, they came from Hickory Valley and Lee Highway, Station 8, uh Captain Bishop, who is actually a Swiftwater team lead on the team, arrived in his apparatus, saw the situation, saw the severity of it, and said, I need swift water and other units coming.

So, like Chief Bowright said, he established command in that area, he started bringing in the resources that he needs, and so it started small, and that's where you're gonna grow, just like Chief Boatwright said, and and making it larger.

So he established he asked for the Swiftwater team and the cache of equipment to make it to Station 13 because that's where he was at, kind of centralized in that Brainerd area.

So we got that all that heading that way.

And you can see within our department, we responded over a hundred plus firemen to that area.

Trucks from all over the city were going in to help out.

With the help of our mutual aid, those other teams Chief Bullwright talked about, the Swiftwater teams coming in from Bradley County, Cleveland, uh, Dallas Bay, and uh other places came in.

They helped us answer over 50 plus rescue calls, and within that, 35 stranded citizens were rescued from houses on top of cars, inside cars.

So that's just what we rescued.

You saw on the media uh civilians and EPB workers and other people pulling people out of the cars that had them out before we even got there.

So thank you.

We're just working together as a community to help each other out.

And so after the command post was set up, you know, we we started swiftwater operations.

Our team got there, suited up, grabbed our boats, and went out to the community.

Um so they were just it was so sporadic as far as where the rescues were.

They were just throwing the boat in the back of a truck, taking it, pulling it out, doing the rescues, picking up next call comes in, and they were going.

So these teams were just moving all over the city wherever it needed.

We helped uh CPD with uh merch evacuations, and then we took worked with uh community uh outreach or community um division and opened up the uh Brainerd Rec Center, and so anybody that we evacuated that needed a place to stay until some people could come pick them up, or later on, we took them to the uh Brainerd Community Center, and then we block a uh affected uh roads to try to prevent people from getting into the high water.

We had trucks out blocking the road, um fire trucks.

Captain Kristen Smith was there.

We could hear her calling on the radio asking for more units there because she had a whole group of people, about 50 people that just needed to get across that water, they just didn't know the severity of it.

They were wanting to get to their truck or get to their car or whatever across, and unfortunately, one gentleman passed by us, ran and then fell in and and perished.

So that's what happened uh with that.

So uh of course, we worked with the community development and opened that communication, and that's the big thing with command and opening the EOC, you know, out there we need more resources, and so communicating back to the EOC to help us get those resources, and also give the information that the media needs and what we need to get out.

So our PIO along with uh Amy Maxwell uh from the county goes there.

We send her all the information that we need, and so man, they were throwing the information out over and over quick as possible to get the correct information out.

And as you saw on social media, we just the media everything just kept coming out pretty quick and kept us up to date.

Uh we work well, all the agencies, just like in the tornado, any of the Mercy has when it hits every agency in this county come together, and uh even outside counties coming in, and we work great together.

Uh the relationship, uh I heard it say we check the eagles at the door, and so we're a community, and that's how we respond to these incidents.

Moving forward, lessons learned.

Uh it just shows that the importance of continuing to invest in our specialized rescue teams.

Everybody will see today if they didn't see on social media already.

Uh team of director Patrick Sheehan came down from Nashville and gave our Swiftwater team its accreditation uh certificate from being accredited.

So, what that means is that our team not only will spawn in the city of Chattanooga, it'll respond out in the counties with mutual aid around us, it can respond anywhere in the state of Tennessee, and it can be respond anywhere in the country.

Um, if team if Tennessee needs us, they get a call from another state, and they say we need swiftwater team, Tima can call us, and they know that we have the training, the equipment to respond, and they can send us anywhere in the in the United States to help out other communities.

So thank you so much.

Chief, that is a fantastic accomplishment for our swift water rescue and and and just in the nick of time.

Absolutely.

Uh that is uh a testament to our investment in our personnel and our equipment.

So this is we congratulations.

We had our test, uh, we had our test for our accreditation the first of June, and since then, you know, this is our third Swiftwater Rescue incident that we've been uh sent out on.

So yeah, great job by those guys.

Well done.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, Madam Vice Chair, we're gonna move into Department of Public Works uh see if we are able to find Chief Chambers.

I might serve for me.

He thought he was presenting at council, so he's headed this time.

He's had it this way.

Well, we'll talk slower.

There we go.

Uh Jeremy, are you uh able to join us?

Public works out here and we'll bring them in.

I have to be honest, I didn't know what Bluff meant until Jeremy told me.

So we added that part in.

What's that?

I've noticed him use that.

Yeah, and it's it's fascinating to see the protocols that go into place in public works and even with the EOC.

It's it's an intricate system that probably people don't clean emergency emergency operating centering center.

And it's once it goes into effect, it is it is it is a multitude of agencies that come together and watching them, and I've I unfortunately I had the chance to witness that in 2020 with the tornadoes.

Uh Commissioner Schmidley and I were in the OC and watching them seamlessly integrate uh whether they were city where they county or even it's fascinating to watch sitting side by side working hand in hand, and I cannot underscore the importance of our emergency operations personnel.

What about um wastewater or well I do have Mark Heinzer here?

Mark, are you uh behind me?

I am why don't you take the helm and we'll um we'll go over our wastewater response.

Absolutely.

Um we were fortunate, we were somewhat ready for the events.

Um as you recalled July 4th, Texas, a major rain event, major flooding.

So after that event, we huddled up as a leadership over at Moccus and Bend and said, what do we need to do when this happens to Chattanooga?

Not if, it's when.

So we had the opportunity to do that, and so we were ready.

We always have uh 20 plus people that are at the controls 24-7, but on top of that, we always have 25 or so people that are on call, mechanics, electricians, uh, sewer maintenance folks, uh, to come in and be ready when this happens.

So when this rain event was unfolding, we knew they were all going to be activated throughout the night.

And they were, and they did a lot of stuff.

So uh we had a lot of the mechanics and electricians were running around at different different stations, and we had uh collection system going out to look at the overflows.

Uh, next slide, Darren.

Uh so for the collection system, we had a bunch of folks uh we had a lot of calls, came in from all over the place.

We responded to to each one of those, we had to do some temporary uh bypass pumping.

We had to pump out some some different uh pump stations.

We lost power in a few areas, uh, but everything was handled uh as we expect it to be handled by our crews.

Next slide.

Um operations and maintenance, uh we had some CSO challenges.

We also had some challenges with the plan in our wet weather system where uh power outages are always a thing when you have a storm, so we we were battling a few of those, but again, we were kind of ready for that.

Uh we knew that was coming.

Uh and then the day after, the biggest thing for us is like the day after, what do we look like?

And our communications to our different pump stations were back up, our power was back on the to the different things, our bypasses could be taken offline.

We we um restored ourselves very very quickly after this, which is really a part of the resiliency that we try to strive for.

We know that that Mother Nature we can't build pipes big enough to handle Mother Nature.

We had over 11 billion gallons of waterfall on the city that day.

We treated 230 million gallons at the plant, but there's only so much you can get, you know, to it.

So um not all of that, a lot of that's just just rainwater that never comes into our system.

But what came into our system was 230 million gallons that we were able to treat, and uh you know, and and recover very, very quickly.

So right now it's like it for us, it's kind of like it never happened with the exception of some construction sites that were still trying to understand the damage and do an after action on those.

So that is kind of that's our report for uh for the event.

Very good.

Yes, ma'am.

Well, I'm just I just have a comment because I had the privilege of doing a tour of the wastewater plant on Thursday.

It was an hour and a half, I ended up staying like three hours because it's just that interesting.

That much fun.

Uh it is that much fun.

And understanding when I hear now the gallons of how much we we're you know, we're helping our community with.

I mean, I appreciate your department way more now at that have uh protest that go on for for four years first term, but I I'm thankful that I went, and now I see the work that you do, so I just appreciate I appreciate the work that you all are doing out at wastewater.

Thank you.

Very good.

Any other questions?

Council?

Is it appropriate to ask questions now?

Uh I think we have a pause, so if you'd like to please sir.

Uh can you explain?

And I've gotten this question quite a bit, Mark.

We we have these uh storm drains or whatnot.

What calls a lot of the back of?

Water, it's called infiltration, like inflow and infiltration.

So we have separate sewer systems in most of the city where you got a sanitary sewer pipe and you've got a stormwater pipe, and they're designed to be separate, they don't touch each other, except for downtown, they do.

But outside of downtown, they're separate.

But what happens is we have an older system.

You got those pipes that are 50, 60, 70 years old, and they they you know kind of move and shift over time and they separate, which allows rainwater to get in.

And so when rainwater gets in, it mixes with the sanitary sewer, and we just we have to treat that.

And so it gets into the pipes, and it basically just fills those pipes with stormwater when we really just want the the uh sanitary uh wastewater to be in there.

So we don't really have a choice.

What part of the consent decree is to rehabilitate a lot of these old pipes?

And we're doing that.

We've got a million feet of pipe that we're gonna be rehabilitating in the next five years.

It's going to reduce this inflow and infiltration quite a bit and reduce those surcharges on our pump stations and coming out of the manholes and things like that.

So that's all part of the consent decree management of an aging system.

We've got 1,200 miles of pipe in the ground, we've got 30,000 manholes, and those manholes leak too.

Um they're they can be 30 feet deep, and that whole vertical column can get rainwater coming through the bricks and things like that, and just kind of starts to overwhelm the system with the rain of this magnitude.

So what I hear you're saying, um our pipes was just overload with water.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

And then ask you this.

Uh and I've been familiar with this for a while.

Our pump systems.

Um, what role did they play in helping mitigate some of this?

And uh how do you feel like our pump stations performed?

Yeah, they performed very well with the exception of we had a power outage, which of course that wasn't about the the storm water per se, it was more about the storm itself, and we're doing an after action on that to try to figure out what caused that.

But when you have a power outage, uh then you have a then you have an issue because the water just fills up into that wet well and can overflow at that location.

But our pump stations, uh again, that's we're we are rehabbing a number of our pump stations.

I think we've got six under under rehabilitation right now, and we've got a bunch more before the consent decree uh sunsets in 2030.

So uh those actually did fairly well throughout this, except for like a very few.

We have 80 pump stations.

I think we went out to five or six that had problems, but the majority of them were performing as intended.

Were any of those pumps they or are they were they all operational?

Uh normal.

All but one was operational, yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

We lost communication on one, but it was still able to do what it was supposed to do until we got back out there and did it.

The other one we lost power and it wasn't good, but it was that was the one at um was that Carver?

I mean Brynner Manor or Brainerd Manor, uh Sitico.

Sitico was the one that lost power.

Okay, yeah, okay.

Which was the other one that you lost connection with?

I'm trying to remember, it's uh probably I don't know if it's on this slide or the previous slide.

Maybe I can move in my slide.

You're gonna see.

I'm sorry, Darren, I'm trying to say No, I agree.

Which yeah, I don't see what I think it was storm station, storm station one, I think was the one that we had to go out and get communications back up online.

So I'll I'll verify that.

But yeah, it was it was uh a communication thing that we got station three.

Oh, there we yeah, storm station three, yeah.

Thank you.

And where is that located?

Storm station three is on the levee adjacent to I-75, right where all of this occurred.

That's the one that wasn't working.

That's the one where the communication was down, but the backup the radio backup was working, and so it was still that was still functioning.

Still still functioning.

Yeah.

Uh, in your opinion, is there anything that we could have done differently?

Um, or had we had other things in place that could have helped mitigate some of what we experienced.

Yes, one of one of the things that we did look at was uh went back and looked at the operations, like because we control the flow into the plant, into our storage units, into um different you know, pump locations and everything, and so what we did was we looked back at what was happening at the plant and how we were diverting flow from one phase to the next in the treatment, and we identified some areas where we could have done a little bit better in moving water through a little bit more efficiently.

So it's an operational thing that we we you know, a lesson learned there operationally that we could have done.

Um but it wouldn't have saved, you know, it wouldn't have made a whole lot of difference in the outside the plant limits at that point in time.

So one of the things that we do want to do that we haven't done yet is to look at the Citico pump station and understand why did the power go out?

Is there some is there a root cause there that we need to address?

Uh and again with the communications, we're working on the communications uh uh network-wide, and so we don't anticipate uh have too many problems with it with that going forward unless hurt, you know, unless a tornado comes through and takes out everybody's communication, in which case we have backup radios, we've got backup generators and things like that that we employ when those things happen.

Okay, last question.

And please bear with me if this is not a fair question, and I'm and I'll take that one.

Um as we look to chip away at this consent decree and make the improvements.

Do you believe those future improvements could help avoid something like such as this exacerbating in the future?

Yeah, so one of the things that the consent decree has in it is 45 or 40 million gallons of storage for for events like this, it's not online yet.

Once that's online, we will have greater capacity to kind of weather these types of storms without having the challenges that we have.

Uh but we're still two years away from getting that system online.

But once that is online, we we should see uh a better overall control over when these things happen.

And it we still will always have something happen, a pipe will collapse or something will happen, um, but it should be much less in magnitude once those uh uh storage units are online and uh they're functioning and working with the plant and everything else.

We should see we should be able to handle these types of events more cleanly.

If I guess two more, now promise.

Okay, I've got two other people in line, and I've got it's past three.

So one quite can you do one?

Can you switch into one?

Yes.

Um all of our storage uh facilities full for runoff.

No, we have those two new tanks and the two pools.

Yes.

And long-term planning, is in your opinion.

Do you think this highlights a need for additional wastewater treatment facilities, such as what the county has even proposed building themselves?

So we did we had everything full during this event.

We filled up every gallon, every corner we could find.

We've we've we filled up for this for sure.

Um, and so I I guess with as far as the need for additional uh wastewater treatment.

Um a big part of the problem is getting the uh the wastewater to the plant from remote areas.

And so if you're looking at uh remote areas in the county that are gonna grow as the city grows or as a region grows, there may be a need for that at some point in time.

The challenge is really getting it from those areas to the plant right now, and so uh that's kind of what we're working on is capacity uh to do that.

Um, but there's there will probably be a need at some point in the future, but I don't know that it's it's on the doorstep.

So thank you.

Thank you very much.

40 billion 40 million gallons sounds like a lot to me here, 11 billion foul, right?

Councilman Henderson.

Well, whenever we'll do an update for the study, I think it would be good to uh mention the opportunities that we took to capture some of that storm water that was going to our combined system and now head straight to the river.

Separating it.

That that I'm not yes.

I mean, I'm sure that helped tremendously getting an event like this.

What I understood understood the construction site handled the other very well.

Yeah, well, that's that's good to hear, and any kind of a separation we can do for the the combined area near the downtown as new developments come along the river and get get those uh new developments to do that separation uh is is huge and provides that extra capacity that would be really very helpful.

That's the best thing you can get for your buck on on those new developments for sure is to do that.

Okay, thank you, good councilman.

Councilwoman Burst.

Um thank you, gentlemen.

I'm gonna I've got several pieces of information I want to ask where I'm gonna hold them till the end and just provide that list to deputy chair.

I mean deputy chief.

All right, sounds good.

So let's thank you very much, Mark.

So we've got public works, we've got police, and we've got community.

Right.

Jeremy Administrator Wood is with us.

Thank you for joining us this afternoon.

If you want to, if you don't mind, Jeremy, take the helm, and then uh I'll start the slide for you.

Good afternoon, council members.

So I want to start the slide off with just the bottom line up front.

So the Department of Public Works responded in multiple efforts to include pre-during and post-government initiatives, and it's been ongoing all of last week, rolling into this week as well.

We always remain dedicated and steadfast to the prevention of and in response to any event in the city of Chattanooga and Hamilton County.

I say that because we are on call 24-7.

Our team is ready to go.

If we're not ready to go, we have people on standby to come in to be ready to go.

You can see down there all of our response efforts uh on day one.

We responded to more than more than 100 service calls.

We had 15 different crews for cleaning catch basins.

Our forestry crews were down uh collecting trees that were blocking roadways.

We had multiple barricades out.

Uh we were responding to possible evacuation needs uh with the Ramsey Center, and uh what one new thing that we have started doing is I have an assessment team that I'm trying to push out as soon as we have a storm hit.

That gives us time to react to and calculate everything that's happening while it's happening instead of waiting until it's done and the water disappears.

The team is out there absoluting it while it's ongoing.

That will help us in the future for any kind of uh requests that we have for uh funding, federal funding, things of that sort for disasters.

We have a dedicated cleanup following every event that's you'll see it constantly.

You've seen the trees in the past and everything else.

Uh we're totally committed.

We had more than 300 people committed to the second day of recovery operations.

And for our shift, we actually had people on shift for 12 hours prior to the event, got called right back on the shift for another six hours and then 12 hours of recovery.

So almost well, right at 30 hours of work continuously for that entire team.

Next slide.

All right, so the our sequence of events always happens with a pre.

We are always trying to get out there before a storm hits so that we can clear the hot spots that we know are typically flooding or reacting in a negative in a negative manner.

As we get out there, we recognize different things, and the team is constantly trying to pull something or call somebody else to grab something.

It is a constant back and forth of being in the pre and transitioning into the during and then the post.

For us, it's one seamless transition continuously.

Whenever we get our our preventative timelines, we establish who's gonna go in, where they're gonna go, how they're gonna do it, and we release them at that time.

We identify the personnel that are on hand, what their competencies are, how they're gonna go into the scenario and what they're gonna remove.

We issue our orders based on the activity and what the supervisors are comfortable with and how they can respond.

The supervisors detail the action, so we're not micromanaging anything.

They detail the action that needs to happen on site.

They go in, they talk to the commander that's on site.

If there is a site commander, if not they go in and make decisive actions so that they can start prepping everything and get stuff cleared out of the way.

Um we don't wait for any kind of permissions unless it's actually dealing with power lines.

If it's power lines, we remain outside of the affected area so that nobody gets electrocuted.

So that's the one thing that we we call and request something else.

Everything else we go right in and start taking taking control of the action.

Uh, if there's any kind of change or if something happens somewhere else and we need to shift our actions, then that's a uh on-site call that's made at that point, and our teams will be notified by the infrastructure leaders or the site commanders, and we'll shift accordingly.

Once we do all that, the crews are constantly talking back and forth to report whatever they're finding, uh what they see, what it looks like getting in or out to that uh location, and we're always collecting the data at the end so that we have a constant assessment area.

Next slide.

So our stormwater division as part of the pre, the stormwater division is always looking at the flooding impacts, the uh the maps and different uh environmental impacts that it has, what like how they can inspect it or expect it, what levels they look at for the uh actual size of the event.

Uh we have maps that show the flood areas that are already recognized within the city of Chattanooga and Hamilton County, and those are constantly being updated and reviewed.

Uh we try to get out early so that we can close the hot spots so that nobody's getting into the hot spots, even though people drive around barriers all the time and get in there, and then we have to go in and pull them out of the cars.

But we try to get in there beforehand so that we can actually communicate that it needs to be off limits.

Uh, we're always doing assessments and and looking at the sites for different visits, so retention ponds and things of that sort.

We provide an after-event report, which I just pushed up the second day from this last event, so that it could see it could show the accumulation of water, where the impacts were and how bad it actually was.

This past storm we recognize as it being between a 200 and 500 year storm.

So that's very significant for the amount of rainfall and the infrastructure that we have on site not being able to contain all of that.

We're always looking at the different problem areas and how we can get better.

We're creating work orders as we're going through there to see exactly what we can and can't do, and then we coordinate everything for damage.

And I'm open to your questions.

Thank you, Jeremy.

Counselor, do you have any questions?

Quickly, yes, sir.

Um, I saw where that there was uh one uh ditch in in my area that was quite grown up, and thank you all for going out and and clearing that.

But my understanding it was a business owned, and there was drain, big massive drains.

And so I think it's important that we clarify to business owners and they help me if I'm if I'm wrong here, that it is their responsibility if it's on their land to make sure that that is cleaned out and absolutely destructed.

Um even though this was not the city owned property, thank you for fixing that in my district.

But am I correct in saying that?

Yes, sir, you are so businesses and property owners are responsible for the clearing of the ditches unless it's a big obstacle.

If it's a large obstacle, then we'll come out and remove it.

They just got to call a few minutes.

Very good.

Okay, thank you.

Oh, yeah, hi.

Uh thank you for the conversation back and forth just about Bellboard and South Brainerd.

I know that there's a lot of issues that still need to be addressed in those neighborhoods.

I'm not gonna take that time here, but I would love to maybe if we get a break either today or maybe sometime in the morning to talk to you about what we can do.

I think there's some things that need to be cleaned up that may have been part of the cause, uh not the overall cause, but I want to talk to you about that offline so we don't have to do it here.

But I appreciate everything y'all have done, and I know I know you're working hard, and I know a lot of people have a lot of stuff to clean up, so I'd like to figure out how we get can get it done and not you know kill our staff too.

So I'd like to figure out how we get can get it done and not you know kill our staff too.

So I don't know that hard is even the word for it.

Yeah, well, another beyond committee.

Yeah, so I look forward to to having that conversation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

No, we're great.

Jeremy, thank you.

And your team's efforts.

So, council, we have uh running a little low on time, so I do see Chief Chambers here, but I see our interim administrator Cedric Henson for community development.

I really want to get this one in as well.

Um take it away, Cedric.

Okay.

Uh thank you, Council, uh, Cedric Henson.

And so the Department of Community Development, well, one thing to know, uh, our primary responsibility is to provide the shelter site uh in an event like this.

Uh, what we're able to do is really require uh provide that evacuation site uh for our constituents.

Uh additionally, we also provide accommodations for emergency uh responders if they have to set up an incident command post.

Uh, we want to be able to uh execute field operations.

We do provide that site as well.

Uh so from initial active uh from initial notification, we did activate the Chris L.

Ramsey Center.

Uh it was a great partnership with American Red Cross throughout the process, getting those essential resources uh to our uh 21 evacuees on the first night.

Uh we do uh did you know accommodate uh C C F D with any uh needs that they had in a reference to standing up uh those uh that IOC or that um command post.

Uh and then from there, really we continue our operations past the main event.

Uh so post we uh continue to operate at Chris L.

Ramsey after the storm had concluded.

Um we then began start looking at other sites that we may have to activate as we start hearing that a second storm uh could possibly hitting uh be hitting the city.

Uh I did call a couple of the council members to let them know that uh their centers may be the ones uh that that we would use.

Uh so we did identify those.

Uh great shout out to to John A.

Patton, who also uh opened up a clothing pantry, and we were prepared uh as we saw many of our evacuees uh came in with uh and so you know, clothing was one of the resources needed.

So a great job for for uh John A.

Patton and assisting with that.

Uh throughout the entire process, one of our great successes was just that that strong coordination piece uh in between, you know, communicating with CFD city leadership.

Uh we we were all able to send out clear messaging and mobilize our staff as quickly as possible.

Uh we did come across some recent uh resource constraints.

Uh we saw at the onset uh because American Red Cross, this was a storm without notice.

And so uh at the onset, there is some lag time between when AER is going to show up, or I'm sorry, not ER, uh ARC, uh American Red Cross, when they do show up uh in reference to when we first take in our first uh evacue.

And so we're gonna mitigate that moving forward by pre-positioning some some uh uh boxes that have a lot of those essential resources uh in our centers for for quick mobilization.

Uh other than that, uh we we're looking to do uh outside of that resource uh pre-positioning.

I'd like to go to the next slide to be able to show um what we're looking at as an opportunity here.

Uh and so I I will I'll call this a framework of opportunity.

What I really want to capture is how do we begin leveraging other resources throughout the city to kind of converge in on our community centers to give a robust and comprehensive uh service and quality of care uh for our evacuees?

Uh so simply put, uh you know, upon uh activation, uh we're we're gonna give ourselves the problem statement of you know, how do we provide uh these services and the the department will work through those uh and we'll really look at it through the lens of a timeline from our IOC, which we're calling our initial operating capability, all the way through our FOC, which we'll we'll consider our full operating capability.

And so at 24 hours, we're laser focused on really those life-saving measures.

How do we stabilize those people that have been evacuated and come to our our uh centers?

Uh, who does that involve?

It's American Red Cross, it's it's uh CFD at CPD are really getting those people stable stabilizing that initial 24 hours.

And then 48 hours into it, how do we start integrating those other services?

Uh not only governmental service, but those non-governmental service, like the American Red Cross and Tennessee Boad.

And then by the time uh we are fully operated at full operation capability, uh, we're really able to say, you know, not only do do we provide those basic services necessary, but we're also helping with you know stabilizing houses and and uh public health services as well as just really providing a pathway of resilience uh and continuity for for our residents that that come into our centers.

So Penny, any questions?

I I have two questions.

Yes, sir.

First, what is the orange one TN VOAD?

Tennessee Boad.

What is that?

And that's the volunteer organization of active disasters.

And what this team does, it is listed throughout.

It's about 46 entities that are incorporated together in a directory, and they are here.

One even showed up to the center.

They all offer different things from crisis crisis counseling to pit keeping pits and just a lot of different services that they offer.

And it's about collaborating what we're looking at.

Those that leads to those non-government entities that we'll we'll collaborate with to try and get assistance to make it more robust.

Thank you very much for what you did.

As I look at this and hear what you're saying, I appreciate the thoughtfulness and the professionalism that you're bringing to this.

As I see this diagram, though, my uh instinct would be that the American Red Cross should be in the circle of this, and that they're the ones that that lead disaster response, and that we are one of the we are one of the elements in the hub of people whose all day, every day is disaster response and connection with resources.

So, like setting people up for long-term success, etc.

That there are that there are other groups that would be in the hub of this, and that we are one of the helpers in that hub.

So something for us to discuss.

Yes, yes, it is.

Thank you.

Very good.

That's all anybody.

I don't think we had anybody else on the room.

Thank you very much.

We're gonna keep moving forward.

Uh thank you, Cedric.

That was all great.

Chief Chambers, you want to join us real quick?

Thank you, sir.

Appreciate you.

I know you were tied up with the project.

So ladies and gentlemen, our chief of police.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you so much for this opportunity.

Um, just briefly going over what what occurred that night.

That evening we started getting an influx of of calls about water in the roadways.

Um, all that led to about 427 calls for service regarding flooding or check hazard, or literally people trapped in their vehicles or homes needing you know a way out.

Um as you would expect, our first responders you know responded in kind.

Um they were out there, boots on the ground immediately.

Um whatever it took to get folks to safety is is what they did.

Um we also once once we recognized that this was not just a a small event, uh we went ahead and activated some off-duty resources that that we know with our special operations unit, our drone unit, things like that, to have those on hand.

Um, and then we also brought in some folks to help you know early to help with calls for service.

Um, fortunately, we have take home cars, so that gave us the ability to bring our midnight shift folks straight from their houses.

So we did not have to have them come into a centralized location, which could have been very difficult to get to.

They were able to go straight into their areas that they're assigned and immediately start helping, and that's exactly what we did that night.

Um, unfortunately, uh the next day that morning we got a phone call, um 7600 block of East Brandon Road, um, which is the same location where our firefighters the night before had observed uh a gentleman uh forego the warning and move into high water.

Um we got a call that there was potentially uh this individual was potentially found.

Uh we deployed our drone unit because it's a very very difficult area to get to.

Um drone unit did identify that this you know was not um debris.

This this was a person, so then we moved forward to secure that scene and work it as a as a death investigation, notify the next.

And then from the communications aspect, um that was that was as soon as the EOC was set up for the you know countywide EOC, we were engaged in that constant communication, um, collaborating with the fire department's PIO's office to make sure that we're all sending the same message.

Um you know, sending out Facebook posts and everything else that we can to be able to update the media, and that's generally what we try to do is we we send that information to media versus our posts.

We have very limited followers compared to 39 and 12, so we kind of utilize them to help push that information out.

As far as areas for improvement, uh there was some a little bit of communication early on early on with the EOC what that response was going to be like.

We're we're having a um a debrief with them later this week to kind of get those things ironed out.

Um and then you know, some some other notes.

We did have two patrol vehicles uh that were damaged.

One of them was able to be clean and salvaged and will be reissued.

Uh the other one was a total loss, it you know, hydrolocked the engine, and um so it was a total loss.

And then also we had several officers that had some their you know their boots, personal equipment, things like that that was damaged.

We're working on getting an assessment of all that so they can be replaced.

Very good.

Thank you very much.

Any questions?

Okay, Chief, thank you.

Appreciate it.

We're gonna Madam Chair, uh, with your permission.

Uh, 311 had a short uh presentation.

The data is on the slide.

Parks and risk also had some information, but I would if you're okay, I'd like to move towards the end because I think the what's next is something that probably of interest to council, and I'd like to bring uh our deputy chief operating officer.

Seek Wilson.

All right, good afternoon, council.

Uh given the time, I'll go through these quickly.

Uh, really, we just wanted to talk about kind of you know what where are we going to go from here to try to improve to be better.

I think you've already heard a lot of that from the departments that have talked about areas that they can improve.

Uh, but the same goes for us at the at the higher level.

Um, you know, when we activate the EOC, someone from the mayor's office goes there.

Um I was I was there for this incident.

Uh and as I was there, just kind of really thinking about you know what are we supposed to be doing here?

You know, do we have a document that says that?

And uh and the answer was no, we don't.

So we do now.

Uh we've we've created this kind of catch a glimpse of a checklist there.

So uh it's kind of defined what the mayor's office representative is supposed to do while at the EOC.

Um we've also talked about the training.

I think that was brought up earlier in Chief Boat Rides already put us on a couple of trainings that would be great for us to know.

Obviously, fire police, maybe some others, they know exactly what to do in those incidents.

You know, they live this every day.

If they're not in action, they're training for action.

So uh it's second nature to them, but when it comes to the rest of us, it's not.

So we need to uh have some training for the mayor's office staff or the some of our department leadership to make sure they are ready when these things occur.

So we're looking at training there after action meetings.

Uh we've already got a couple on the books, one internal just to talk about things.

We've also got one scheduled with the Red Cross to talk about you know what worked well and what didn't.

So uh things of that nature and just communications, making sure those are good and uh and really just that continued investment in our emergency services.

The last page here is just kind of what we're doing now from a perspective of uh assessing damage.

We are actively going out and we're we're getting info coming in from lots of different departments as to you know road damage, infrastructure damage, things of that nature that the city's gonna have to be on the hook to pay for.

We're trying to get collect all that information.

Uh we're doing that on ourselves for the city.

We're also compiling that out to the state because we have, as you know, declared a uh a declaration of emergency.

Uh that allows us to potentially get refunded for cost from TIMA if we meet a threshold.

Uh and as of today, we don't know if we met that threshold yet.

Um, but we're still collecting a lot of information.

The threshold there is 1.6 million, as I understand it.

Um of the things that has come out is Tennessee uses the survey 123 software to load all of their stuff and to manage the TEMA process.

Hamilton County emergency management also uses that software, which means they can load and interact directly with the state.

We are not using that software, so that's an opportunity we would like to look at in the future.

Um the bottom part here of the dark blue is something I put here because this is kind of important for you.

I think as council people, if you are getting phone calls from a resident that says, hey, my house is flooded, what do I do?

They can call this number, which is our land development office, and someone from Stormwater will come out and do an assessment.

They can also email Hamilton Tn.gov and somebody from the emergency management office will come out and do an assessment.

Um beyond that, obviously contact their insurance company.

I know a lot of people don't have flood insurance, but that's the good place to start is by reaching out to their insurance companies.

So that's what I have very good.

Steve, Madam Chair, oh, sorry.

No, go ahead, make your comment and I'll I was gonna have one more slide and then I know we have a 330.

Um let's not, council members, please answer.

Um I just want to I want to I have a list of the pieces of information that I'd like to get post-meeting.

So I don't know if your last slide's gonna address that, so I'm happy to wait.

Okay.

All right.

Um so I'm I'm interested.

Uh I've got two neighborhoods in my district, uh, Belbor and South Brainerd that are still in dire straits.

They have a lot of which I've mentioned, I'll get with uh Jeremy to talk about cleanup procedures.

Something I think that we can if we can come up with a plan to just show up one day with a lot of trucks, get the stuff because I think it's gonna it's gonna speak volumes for helping them heal along.

There's probably other communities that are in the same position, but I'm you know, my district.

I I'd also be interested in more information about from T Dot because I'm getting a lot of questions about that those neighborhoods uh are parallel to the T Dot construction.

I'm also interested in and I think Steve you kind of answered this but I want to confirm the process to have FEMA or Tima uh folks come out and assess damage because they're showing up in neighborhoods but not because people have called them they're just showing up so I want to make sure people don't get missed.

I've told them that they need to turn the information in to our council clerk but maybe we need to direct them here instead so I just want some verification of the most direct place for them to to contact to make sure that they don't miss this opportunity if they meet the requirement and I think if everybody in Bellford and South Brainder reports it we will definitely meet that 1.6 million.

I I feel confident in that along with everybody else's and then I'd like to hear more and this can come from my conversation with uh Jeremy hopefully in Stormwater is um addressing some of the debris issues I think that were noticed once the water cleared that are going to need to be cleaned up because I don't see anything in an after action plan as far as uh cleaning up in the public places so public spaces that have a lot of backed up debris that aren't necessarily going to be called in by a resident from 311 what's the plan to address that debris because I've got pictures that people have sent me from public spaces where trees and grocery carts and other things are across the road that got that are stuck in sewage drains now so we need to address those for the next episode.

Absolutely I'm happy to connect with you on break sorry yeah it in whoever it is I can put this list together and those are my items.

Thank you really quickly 328 so I'm gonna let you ask it after we have no question just to clarify for councilman for everybody who's sending stuff to our council office was going to the direct point of contact with mercy ministry.

Okay we have confirmation thank you very much thank you