City Council Meeting on Fire Safety & Flood Response, August 19, 2025
City Council Meeting on Fire Safety & Flood Response, August 19, 2025
The Chattanooga City Council convened on August 19, 2025, to receive two major presentations: a community risk reduction update from the fire department focusing on cooking fire prevention, and a multi-departmental after-action report on the historic flood event that occurred in mid-August. The meeting included data-driven discussions, personal stories, and commitments to improve emergency response and infrastructure resilience.
Consent Calendar
- Council approved the minutes from the previous meeting without objection.
Discussion Items
Fire Prevention & Community Risk Reduction (Alan Green, CFD Life Safety Educator)
- Alan Green presented the concept of Community Risk Reduction (CRR), emphasizing proactive strategies to identify and mitigate risks beyond traditional fire response.
- He reported that cooking fires accounted for 18.92% of structure fires in 2023 (42 of 222) and 24.0% in 2024 (73 of 304), noting an upward trend. The 37421 ZIP code had the highest number of cooking fires both years.
- Green highlighted the CRR framework's five E's (Education, Engineering, Enforcement, Economic Incentives, Emergency Response) and an unofficial sixth E (Empowerment).
- He shared a success story: resident Carrie Harris's smoke alarm (installed by CFD) alerted her to a candle-related fire, saving her and her daughter.
- Councilman Dolly confirmed that firefighters work on special assignment (with compensation) for CRR activities. Councilwoman Burst asked about grant funding; Green cited partnerships with the U.S. Fire Administration and organizations for smoke alarm and escape ladder programs.
Flood Response & Recovery
- Meteorologist Brian Smith described the August 2025 flood as a rare event with rain rates of 6-9 inches per hour and 5.5 inches in three hours, comparable to a 200–500 year storm. No flash flood warning was issued beforehand.
- Fire Chief Chambers reported 50+ rescue calls, 36 stranded citizens rescued, and one fatality. Over 100 firefighters responded. The swiftwater rescue team received state accreditation, allowing deployment statewide and nationally.
- Public Works Administrator Jeremy Wood stated crews responded to 100+ service calls, including clearing catch basins and downed trees. 300+ personnel were involved on day two. The storm was categorized as a 200–500 year event.
- Wastewater Director Mark Heinzer noted that 230 million gallons were treated; 11 billion gallons of rain fell citywide. Power was lost at some pump stations (e.g., Citico), but most performed well. Ongoing consent decree improvements (40 million gallons of storage) are expected to improve capacity within two years.
- Community Development Interim Administrator Cedric Henson reported that the Chris L. Ramsey Center was activated for 21 evacuees. He proposed a framework (24hr/48hr/FOC) for integrating services like American Red Cross and Tennessee VOAD. Councilwoman Burst suggested Red Cross should lead in disaster response.
- Police Chief Chambers said 427 flood-related calls were handled; off-duty officers were activated via take-home cars. Two patrol vehicles were damaged, one a total loss.
- Deputy COO Steve Wilson outlined improvements: developing a checklist for Mayor's Office EOC representatives, training for non-emergency staff, and coordinating with TEMA for potential reimbursement (threshold $1.6 million). He noted the city does not yet use the state's damage assessment software (Survey123).
Key Outcomes
- Council directed staff to compile information on FEMA/TEMA assessment procedures and debris cleanup in public spaces, particularly in Bellford and South Brainerd districts.
- Council acknowledged the swiftwater team's accreditation and committed to continued investment in emergency services.
- The city will pursue after-action reviews with partner agencies (e.g., Red Cross) to improve communication and resource pre-positioning.
Meeting Transcript
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.
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