Welcome to our regular county council meeting for March 4th, 2025.

We start on time so we can finish on time.

And we start every meeting with an invocation tonight, which will be led by Mr.

DeSabato, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance led by Mr.

Anderson.

If I get everybody please stand.

Please bow your head.

Dear Heavenly Father, I want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts that you put your veil of protection over my community, my district this weekend.

Gave the power and strength to all of our first responders to help our community get through a very difficult and challenging time.

By the grace of your will, we were able to avoid significant loss of property and life, and and we are amazed by by your grace.

Please continue to protect our community.

Please continue to help our firefighters keep this thing contained, and please continue to protect the members of our our community who live in Carolina Forest.

Allow us to have the wisdom tonight to make the decisions that are right for the entire county, and thank you for your love and your grace.

In your name we pray, amen.

I'd like to please the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

Please be seated.

I would like to make a couple of comments before we go any further.

Just a few brief comments about this weekend, the forest fires.

I I want to thank the public first of all, first and foremost.

Such an outpouring of love and support by good feelings and support financially with supplies and camaraderie.

This community went out of their way to help our firefighters.

The men and women of our firefighting service here are heroes, and they always have been.

But more along the lines with that is the entire team Ori.

And we say we're committed to excellence, that's not just the slogan, it's not just words, it's a solemn vow.

And these men and women took it seriously this weekend.

And we went to the command post at Station 39, and we saw INR director, when we saw the uh Ride 4, when we saw the public information, we saw everybody that works for Ory County, all hands on deck, every fire truck that we had in service deployed.

It was a miracle, and they worked really hard, and we didn't have anybody get hurt, and we didn't lose any structures.

And I am proud of everybody in Ory County.

And I would like for Mr.

Webster to come up and talk a little bit about what happened.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, members of the county.

Kudos and totally agree with everything you just said.

I am very proud of our personnel.

Not only public safety, but all T Morie.

Everybody came out and has done a phenomenal job.

Uh you know, having lived through this in 2009 when we had a very similar situation and arrived on the scene and saw what was going on and just how well things were orchestrated is a testament to why we do after action reports and lessons learned.

And we have learned on what we need to do right after all these events, and we saw that and are continuing to see that.

And obviously, we'll have another after action report, and I'm sure we'll learn a few more things, but I just really hope everybody in this county is proud of their public safety.

INR, all the county departments in this that we have.

Um, and I am very appreciative of the outpouring and support from the Carolina Forest community, not only toward us, but how they have reacted to those folks that were in direct danger.

You can see by a lot of the video or the slide presentations, but when you were, if you were there with those folks at their house, and that flame was within yards of their house and the heroic efforts that took place.

Feet, Randy.

Feet.

Thank you, sir.

Yeah.

It was amazing.

And I'm just, you know, Lord's been with us, there's no doubt about it.

And we're very appreciative of all that.

But so this all started Saturday afternoon, and eight neighborhoods were evacuated.

My kudos goes out to Parks and Rec staff for stepping up with the recreation center as a shelter and emergency management for getting in there and working that logistics.

As of now, at this point, we've still have got 2,059 acres, about 30% contained.

So there's 70% of this thing still going out there.

We're not we're nowhere near putting it out by any stretch.

But phenomenal work of the forestry commission when they got there and they bring their resources, and I can't say enough for the aerial assets that showed up.

That was a game changer on Sunday.

It definitely was, and prevented a lot as well.

So it's just all of us working together for the common good.