This meeting to order.

We are joined this morning by Councilmember Ramirez and Councilmember Davis.

Thank you for being here.

We're also joined by staff from Vice Chair Councilmember Jackson's office, Councilmember Tiffany Thomas' office, Councilmember Mary Nan Huffman's office, Councilmember Martinez's office, Mayor Pro Tem Castic Statum's office, Councilmember Carter's office, and Councilmember Alcorn's office.

Okay, everyone.

Great.

We have one presentation today.

We were supposed to have two, the Ethan program has been delayed.

HFD will come back and give that presentation another time.

But we are very excited to have Captain Bill Moreno to present about high water rescue operations from HFD, and we are happy to have HPD come and give an overview of their high water rescue operations and another month as well after after FIFA is done.

So I think we are ready to start, Captain.

Good morning.

I think it's fitting that we have this conversation today where it is possibly have some flooding going on today.

Across the state, there is going to be some flooding.

Texas Task Force One is deploying, so we'll be deploying directly after this meeting.

Just to give you a little overview of where we are, what we're doing, and who I am.

So first off, I'm Captain Marino.

I'm over the water, the Marine Division for the Houston Fire Department.

My background with the city has been a firefighter in rescue, an engineer operator in rescue, and a captain and rescue.

In addition to what I do for the city, I'm on Texas AM Task Force One.

Made several deployments.

After the 12 days of Harvey, I was on a C 17 flying to Puerto Rico for Irma and Maria.

I was in Hurricane Michael, Hurricane Maria, Irma, Michael, Florence, Helene, and I did 86 days recently in Kerrville.

So when I tell you that these recommendations are, it's not something that I think is just a good idea.

It's something that I've seen works and is that we should be following.

Okay.

So just a little history lesson.

What's going on in uh Houston with flooding and 1935?

Uh we had a fire that we lost eight pumpers.

To put that in today's perspective, that's 26 engines, 26 million dollars of fire trucks that are damaged.

That's not including ladder trucks, ambulances, or any other heavy vehicles that we have that flooded out.

Next slide.

Currently, we continue to see climate emergencies.

Uh in 2024, we had 27 climate emergencies, equaling about a billion dollars apiece.

That Purges County and Houston is no different from that.

Water rescues are probably some of the most dangerous rescues that we do.

We see that going on right now, 400 times more likely to have an incident during that part.

Over the years, 4,000 people drown each year.

Trying to separate that between who's a rescuer and who's not a rescuer, it was kind of hard to do, but I found one study that said 10% of those calls of those drownings were would-be rescuers.

The only area of safe refuge during a flood is out of the water, and that's where we're trying to pull people out of.

Regardless of the settings, water's relentless, unpredictable, and powerful.

We can't overswim, we can't overcome that, and that's why we push the emphasis on our members to swim.

Something else that I think we've prided ourselves on is that we have a situation that we set up a training program that is not successful for everybody.

We push our members to the extreme so that when that incident happens, we know that they're capable of doing this.

That came from Travis Maher, who's a retired or the Sea Battalion chief from Austin Fire Department.

Next slide.

If you're not aware, FEMA's updated the flood maps that are coming out.

Right now they're in draft form, and if you look at the maps with the updated form, it adds another 175,000 homes.

That's not including the 170 government buildings that are going to be in the flood zone now.

The increase, that 31% increase is now a 200 square miles additional to what we're already dealing with.

Part of the reason for the change is the atlas is the atlas factor.

Atlas 14 was a study that FEMA did to figure out exactly how much rainfalls are falling and how frequency it's falling now.

And so those studies now are up helped update the flood maps.

So right now they're in committing, they'll be pushed out by the end of uh 2026 and can go live in 2027.

So the 500 year is the old 500 year is now the new hundred year, and if you're looking at that, who's gonna be impacted on that?

First off, the impact's gonna be our response.

Our response is gonna have to be greater on that.

The other thing that's gonna happen is homeowners, homeowners insurance, renters' insurance, that is also gonna be affected by these.

Next slide.

Here's some things that I've started playing with and looking this up.

I found out we actually had more calls for service in a non-hurricane season, a year when we did not have a hurricane versus when we did have a hurricane.

When you look at the numbers, uh third 50 percent or about 75% of the calls are handled by our members at the station every day.

This is not our swiftwater teams, it's not being handled by our rescue teams.

It is handled by our members that are at the station across the city.

We've kind of broken up Swiftwater into dynamic water and swift water.

When you look at NFPA, NFPA came out and said that swift water is one mile, one knot, 1.15 miles per hour.

And so when you think about that, every water in the street is swift water.

And so we changed the definition for us, saying that we can handle this.

Uh it's we've changed it to dynamic water, and this is what's going on across the state too.

Uh, three miles an hour, a walking pace.

Anything moving faster than a walking pace is um is considered dynamic water or swift water.

When I was going through the remarks, I started looking at some of the the call notes on some of these.

Uh one of them, a couple of them stuck out to me.

Seven people trapped in a flooded house.

Uh another one was 80-year-old male and his handicapped girlfriend trapped in a flooded truck.

Another one was a car that rolled over into the flood water.

So these are incidents that are happening across the city that we gotta handle.

Next slide.

When you start looking at, oops, right there.

So I broke it down in hurricane season.

Hurricane season uh in 2024, we did have Hurricane Burl that came out.

Uh Hurricane Burrow during that hurricane season, we only had 120 calls versus last year when we didn't have a hurricane at all and 145 calls.

So it's not specific to hurricane season.

Hurricanes are not driving our call volume.

It is normal rain that we have every day.

And if you talk to Brian Mason from Public Works, he says we can only handle four inches an hour.

After the four inches, the city's starting to see some nuisance flooding.

Next slide.

So we break out our training into four categories.

Mandatory training that we have.

This is set one of the things that we have set is the Sexus Boater Safety Act.

Um during the Texas Voter Safety Act, it came out and said if you were born after September 1st, 1993, you're required to have a boat or safety card.

Uh HFD has taken that one step further and said that if you work at these stations with the boats, you're gonna have this card.

Uh, and then just to kind of give you perspective, that's 32 years old.

Even though I'm way past that, uh, I still have one.

Next thing is we do is uh our annual training.

These are that we go the uh Chris and I we go to every year and talk to every station that has a boat and a high water vehicle.

Uh we spend 20 days on high water vehicles, 88 days on the water.

Um, it's a good time.

We have a we have a good time, the members love it, the members like doing it, but um at the end of the day, 308 members are trained in high water vehicles, and 640 members are trained in boats.

Uh that number has grown this year because we did add some more boats to the fleet, and we'll talk about that one later.

Um, external expert training.

That is outside training outside the city of Houston, where we go to Oklahoma City uh and do swift water tech.

Uh last year we spent 14 million, or sorry.

Last year we sent 14 members spending 14,000 dollars on training, and that's not including the uh travel expenses.

Something else that's worked out well is our partnership with Texas AM, Task Force One.

Uh we have seven, we have 18 members on the team of the 18, seven of them are rescue specialists, followed by logs, hazmat, and safety.

Those seven members had to spend two days in order to keep their credentialing.

We had to spend two days at Lake Worth in Fort Worth for that training.

That was a zero cost to the city.

And then additionally, we sent a member to Oklahoma or not Oklahoma, Tennessee, to Rock Island, Tennessee, and that's in order to get the Swiftwater boat checkoff.

That is the only place that the state allows that checkoff to happen.

After that, our training our opportunity training.

Opportunity training is just no notice.

It happens right now.

Hey, today is a good day for example.

They're releasing water out of the dam.

We're able to get down there, get our boats in, and we'll send moments on duty out there to go train.

Slitterbond has been another good one for us.

Slitterbond has offered the facility to us at zero dollars, zero cost.

We always invite HPD with us to come out and train because we are working together.

Next slide.

Alright.

Here's one that I like to opt.

This one is a good one.

We've got to build our capabilities from that zero to 24 inches.

So this is how we've done it.

HFD, two years, three, four years ago now.

We built these multi-mission boosters right here.

That's that first vehicle you see.

That vehicle is capable of operating in 20 inches of water up to a maximum of 24 inches.

The reason we want that vehicle is because when it's not flooding, this vehicle is capable of doing other missions.

The next vehicle is gonna be the big M923, the high water vehicles that uh council member started in that process with the spring branch management district.

That vehicles can operate over 50 inches.

We don't like to operate them that deep.

We try to keep them at the 30 inch mark.

Good thing about these vehicles is they're dumb trucks.

Um they have no electronics, and that's what we like about them.

So if that gets wet, not a big deal.

The next thing after this, we have our uh this is a fire boat, but we also have our evac boats.

The limitations on this is that it has to be 24 inches to launch these boats, and that's where we're at right there.

And then the zodiacs, again, 24 inches, and but we have nine of those.

Next slide.

Just to put you into some numbers right here, go back one more.

Amulances are only capable of handling 12 inches of water.

Okay.

After that 12 inches, we're starting to get into the electronics and to a point where we're damaging the vehicle.

The replacement costs on an amlets, $334,000.

The next thing we have on the high water vehicles, and that's our heavy apparatus.

We max those out at 20 inches.

After 20 inches, we're starting to damage the vehicle again.

Again, the average cost on those is about a million dollars a piece.

Uh during Harvey, we flooded out five heavy apparatus and over a dozen light duty and capsized one boat.

That boat is still in service.

Next slide.

Again, we've talked about the multi-mission boosters.

Again, the boosters, I don't know whose idea it was, but whoever it was was pretty smart to make that multi-mission to make sure that we're able to capable of handling flooding and handling grass fires right there.

Um, the downfalls on those, they're not a no-notice event.

For if it started raining right now, I don't have time to pull the skid out, flip the seats up, and get it and back to in service.

Uh, the high water vehicles that we're currently have right now, they can operate up.

We try to operate them safely at 30 inches.

Again, no electronics, move 30 people.

We've moved lots of people, supplies, boats, everything.

You can put a pallet of water in there and start moving it to different areas of the city.

Um the cons on this one, they are single mission.

They're only for high-water high water situations.

Uh, the age of the vehicle is starting to become a nuisance right now, and then the service on the vehicle.

They do have to go out for service.

Uh they are a 24-volt military uh vehicle, and so they have to go out to a specialized mechanic.

The boat ride classic, the boat wreck classic is our workhorse of the end of the of our fleet right now.

Uh 600-pound payload, that is minus in the 600 pounds of firefighters that we're gonna put on there.

They do need 24 inches to operate, and they do can operate only in dynamic water.

Something else that's coming up is we're gonna have to start to repower these units.

The boat originally are 1996.

So they're they're getting there's they're but they're still vessel-worthy boats.

Uh the power units on them, the engines are 2006.

So we're starting to come up to that point where we're gonna have to start repowering the units.

Uh we do have 10-1 boat double stacks.

We bought those shortly after Harvey.

Uh, those were that was a good buy at the time.

Um, the only limitation to them is they are thin metal.

Uh they are only limited to 400 pounds of payload that we can put into it, and that's minus in the 200-pound firefighters that we're putting in there.

Um, they limit they're limited by launch capability, and they need 24 inches of water.

Next slide.

This one, the boat right classic, we've kind of called the Pollard Boat.

Um, this is the one of the newest boats in the fleet.

Uh, that boat right there is a uh 20-foot one-inch boat.

That one actually falls outside of the the weight requirements for the Coast Guard because of the one inch on there.

So we kept them to 1100 pounds of payload, and that again is minus in the 600 pounds of firefighters that we're putting on there.

Uh, they are limited to the 24 inches and dynamic water.

The next boat you see right there, that is our newest fire boat.

Uh, that is gonna go to council member Flickinger's uh area on Lake Houston.

Uh this adds the second boat to the fleet, which is gonna move another boat down to Clear Lake, which is also Flickinger's area.

This one right here is limited to 1300 pounds, but it does have firefighter capabilities on that boat.

Uh, this is the biggest boat in the fleet now, 24 feet long, um, with a 300 pound uh 300 horsepower mercury on it.

The cons on it, it does need it does need 24 inches of water, and it is limited to Lake Houston.

And then our zodiacs, our zodiacs are another one that's a speed speed boat.

Uh we like those because we can do the two-block walk.

Everybody knows our territory, some of it floods, some of it doesn't, and so we're capable of picking that boat up and carrying it to where we need it to go.

Uh these boats can operate in swift water, and so we like that boat because it does come with members that are trained.

Next slide.

Just to give you a breakdown of what's who's on shift right now.

Uh the technical rescue team has 63 members, 63 members that are trained in swift water and flood response at three different stations, 10 in the southwest Houston, 11s, which is in the heights, and 42s, which is on the ship channel.

Uh, they're 14 members a day each day with seven members on staff.

Uh members do come in on due on and off duty on their tour their training.

The next one, the next group that we have is our water strike team, our marine division.

Uh 80 members.

Of that 80 members, they're reserved team.

They come in when we need them.

Uh they're trained in swift water.

Most of all of them are trained in flood water.

I have 43 that are trained in swift water, so they can mirror what the rescue trucks are doing.

During FY26, they were activated twice for two flood events that we had going on.

And the members come in and train on their days off in the future.

The future is where we need to be.

Uh, we need to increase our utilization of drones.

Uh, council member came in, bought five drones from discretionary funds that have been instrumental and lately of picking up uh finding victims in the water.

Uh, the scene that you see right here was two weeks ago where we found a lost kayaker.

Uh, because of the thermal imaging on that on that drone, we're able to find him and get him back to safety.

Uh we need to expand our response capabilities.

We need to build on that zero to 24 inch response.

Uh the other thing that we're capable of doing is coming up is the Fathom tank that Harris County Sheriff's is building.

We are gonna have access to that facility and we'll be able to train there at no cost.

And then we're gonna explore a multi-agency water strike team with Harris County Fire Marshall's office.

And that concludes it.

Thank you so much for the presentation, Captain.

Um, before we get to questions, we were joined in the presentation online by Vice Chair Jackson and then Karen Chambers staff from Councilmember Pollard's office and Councilmember Flickinger's office.

As far as the equipment is concerned, what does HFD still need that you don't have yet, or are there additional um certain things that you need that you don't have?

I think training is going to be our biggest thing.

Uh training time off and support for that training.

We are exploring grants.

I know that we've got some money coming in from directro funds.

So we are looking at that and about buying high water vehicles out of those funds right there.

The idea is going out to a smaller fleet, but a faster, safer fleet.

The Port of Houston did that when they replaced their old boats, they used to have three fire stations.

When they replaced the old boats to the new boats, the new boats, they can meet all the requirements with just two boats.

And so they only have two stations now.

So we're looking at that same model.

Do you need more firefighters that are trained in this, or do you feel that the number we have right now is sufficient?

We're always looking for more training.

Um, you know, in it, but it's just it we have to get to those places.

Uh some of the training with flick uh council member Flickinger's office, uh purchase rafts to get to that training is in Oklahoma or New York, and that's where we learn how to operate those rafts, and so that's where we're looking for support on that one too.

And how does HFD work with the HPD?

So if you know a call comes in to 911 and there's someone who needs to be rescued, I know HPD has their equipment.

Where does that get sent and how do you both entities work together on that?

So on on notice events, it's actually working out really good because we're actually put our commands together and we talk to each other.

We recently last year got uh channels where we can talk to each other.

Uh the marine channels that we have.

Not every station is capable of getting on those channels, but certain ones are.

Uh HPD does have the same channel, so we can all talk to each other.

And I think really the communication part on that, where they have their 19 vehicles, uh, really helps with us.

Great.

Uh Councilmember Ramirez.

Thank you, madam chair.

Captain Marino, thank you for the presentation.

Uh, I know we're all grateful that we have this capability to respond during these kinds of emergencies and thankful for the firefighters who who are willing to do this and go through the training.

I had a question about uh a few of your slides.

One is where you list calls by dispatch type, and um show a uh significant increase year over year from 25 to 26 in the category of assist citizen flooding.

What what are typical assist citizen flooding uh calls as opposed to Swift Water Rescue or Rising Water Rescue?

So the rising water rescues are people that are actually in a vehicle and they drove their car.

Sometimes the call takers, the call notes come in where those fall into that uh assist the citizen flooding, also the same call where they're stuck in a vehicle, they're stuck in their house.

Uh some of those calls are actually uh where somebody broke a sprinkler head and their house is flooding because the sprinkler has gone off, and so that's also an assist citizen flooding.

So there may be some overlap there, but then assist citizen flooding call involves types of calls as well.

Okay.

Um, curious to know, you mentioned staffing of the water strike team and technical rescue, and according to the slide, um 63-member team on shift at three fire stations, 10, 11, and 42, 14 members on shift each day.

Does that mean uh that spread across three shifts, you'll have 14 members?

Yes, sir.

Okay, and then seven on staff.

Uh, what does that indicate?

So, like myself, my partner Chris, uh, the rescue chief, we're all on staff.

Okay.

So you have the capability to go where needed.

Yes.

Okay.

And um, I would imagine because this requires additional time and training, there's a pay differential for for someone who's able to do this or not really.

There is a uh if you're assigned a technical rescue part of the contract, there's a stipend in there.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

That's all I've got.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Councilmember Davis.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Captain, for your presentation.

Uh great information concerning Friday department.

Most people don't know all of the equipment uh it requirement that it takes for you guys to do your job.

I wanted to bring up two, well, two particular questions.

One, the activity on the ship channel.

I know you indicated that were on one of the teams that were uh the strike teams, one uh you indicated how many personnel that operates in that particular uh I think that was the Houston legion, huh?

With the water strike team?

Yes, okay.

So the water strike team is composed of 80 members.

They're basically part-time.

Uh we call them in when we need them because they have the additional training, and we place them at different stations across the city to make sure that we we're also meeting the current call volume plus the extra demand that we'll have during a flood situation.

Okay, so they're part-time.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Uh that was one of the things I that I thought I heard earlier.

Also, the training you indicated is done, some of them come from the off days.

Yes, sir.

Which group particularly is that?

Is that on several areas of the department?

No, that's gonna be our water strike team members.

Um, strike team members, yes, sir.

Okay, and they they do they come in and do train on the off days.

Yes, sir.

Not being paid over time, correct.

Got it.

Okay.

Secondly, um, you talked about the hurricane season, the differences between it and flooding.

Yes, sir.

Times, and which we being at Houston, Texas, we have more flooding days and high ride, high levels of water than hurricane.

Yes, sir.

So would that most time when those things happen, that means your manpower, uh, do you call, do you guys call in.

Yes, sir.

So um we can we made it uh in our guidelines.

We made a deal called FloodCon, uh, kind of like DEF CON for the military, but it's for flooding.

And if it meets this parameter, we call this many people in.

If it meets this parameter, we call this many people in.

And so that those members that call those extra members that were called in are called from our water strike team members, okay.

So there is no overtime.

Uh on one on their call-in, yes, there is.

Okay.

But not during their training time.

Okay, okay, good.

On the call in, yes.

Yes, sir.

And that that's the thing I wanted to make lift up because we have several of our colleagues who are mostly concerned.

Well, good reasons to a certain degree, but concern on the overtimes coming from the fire department and the police department.

And I just want to make sure that we understand some of the parameters and the requirements and responsibilities to that fact.

So in that case, in that scenario, they will be paid.

Yes, sir.

If they're called in on a recall notice, they will be paid.

Okay.

Yes, sir.

Very good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I don't see anyone else in the queue again.

Captain, thank you for the presentation.

We'll move on to public comments.

Um, first, John Nicks.

Howdy, and uh good morning.

Good morning, Councilmember Peck and fellow city council and staff.

I am uh calling to request a complete overhaul with the HFD EMS.

Uh it is a complete mess.

Earlier this month, I've been had a good EMS caller twice to my apartment because my sugar went sky sky high.

I'm a type two diabetic.

And both times, one comes out and eventually two EMSs show up to my to my apartment complex at all.

The route that they take to get me to the EMS is very bumpy.

They don't want to go around to where it's a lot smoother and they refuse to take me to the preferred hospital.

They only want to take me to Memorial City Memorial Herman which is absolutely garbage.

It only takes like a three hour wait while your sugar keeps going up and up and not feeling that well of course my sugar is mine now I tested it while we were in the in the previous presentations at 175 but it does get it has gotten up to like over six five hundred but I would definitely like to see the city revisit you know how many EMSs it sends for one person and of issues of that nature and a complete and to go to the preferred hospital I would rather go to that to like Baylor St.

Luke's or like in the Med Center or St.

Luke's in Vintage than go to Memorial City.

The St.

Luke's works very tightly with my healthcare plan Memorial Herman the hospital's a network but their doctors and specialists aren't so that would be my concern as well for y'all to revisit and fix the EMS system and maybe even split it up to where EM HFD isn't in charge of EMS that's its whole separate government agency like how it is in Montgomery County with the Montgomery County Hospital District EMS service as well.

So that would be my topics for today and uh thanks so much and uh have a great day and I hope y'all and stay dry with all this rain and go team whatever team you're rooting for.

Thank you John appreciate your comments um for for EMS we can certainly find out you know what's been happening to have two um two EMS units come each time um as far as transporting the HFD policy is that they um if there's a hospital closer they can't drive more than 20 minutes to get to a hospital so and that's to be changed because you know memorial city is awful it needs a complete overhaul change they need to learn to go and divert more often need to learn to go and divert okay thank you no problem that's my concerns and thanks so much like I said enjoy stay dry enjoy the rain and go to whatever team you were for thanks for being here um I don't see anyone else signed up was there anyone else in the audience that wanted to speak today all right well thank you everyone for being here today our next scheduled meeting will be on Tuesday August 11th at 10 o'clock a M.

We stand adjourned.