Okay, I'm not going to do that.

So I think that's a good question.

I think it's a fine cost of the first one.

Sounds like a function.

And then we can do this.

Yeah.

I think it's a very good thing.

I think it's kind of a little bit more than the three.

I think you have to do that.

I think it's a very good thing.

So I think that's a very important thing to do.

So I'm going to do that.

Good afternoon.

We were now called to order this meeting of the public safety standing committee.

I'll begin by reading the announcements and guidelines upon activation of emergency alarm signal.

All persons should immediately exit the building.

Please use the exit to the left right or front of the council chamber or the north or west stairwells outside of the rear doors of the chamber.

Do not use elevators or escalators.

At the exit in the building, security would direct everyone down ninth street to the fenced area located between Clay and Lee Streets.

Able persons should assist visually inheriting the pair of visitors with exiting the building.

Persons wishing to speak during the public comment period and or public hearings are journey allowed three minutes to speak.

Persons appearing before the committee are not allowed to campaign for public office, promote by a business ventures, use language of personal nature, which is also demeans any person including comments directed at public officials or staff members that not relate to their official duties, or just of course your staff members directly.

All questions are to be directed to the committee chair.

Seeing none, the public comment period is now closed.

We're now moving on to the approval of the minutes.

And in fact, it's going to be probably El Super El Niño this year, impacts our weather kind of in a weird way, just because it warms up the Pacific Ocean around the equator, two or three degrees, which changes the latitude of the jet stream as it comes through and drastically changes our weather.

You can see at the north or the um the top slide there.

That's basically a uh hurricane in the last 30 years based on La Niña, which is La Niña is a colder version of El Niño in the Pacific, whereas the one on the below is uh El Niño for the last 30 years.

Not to say that there won't be a hurricane with uh these these conditions, but the wind shear and the um the conditions won't show a uh a good pattern going forward uh during these conditions.

So El Niño is normally associated with increased heat, uh increased drought, and um heavy precipitation and flooding because of atmosphere loading.

Uh it changes the location of the tropical Pacific's warmest water.

So that that shift alters the position of jet streams and storms around the world.

And for us, this really doesn't mean too much except to say that we're probably going to see an extended drought as a result because it brings down water saturation in the atmosphere well south of us, so Louisiana, Texas, Florida.

Um the influence is greater in the winter, actually, because of uh more storms coming from the south, increased cloud cover, and cooler daytime temperatures uh and above normal precipitation.

Um we'll get to that probably at the end of the year, and we might have a different uh different uh pronostication at that point.

Um but you can think about like 1957, 1958.

Richmond saw two and a half times normal snowfall.

83 was the president's day's snowfall around 16 inches, and the last super El Nino we had in 1997 saw statewide flooding and widespread damage, uh, as well as a snowmageddon snow uh snowmageddon in Richmond received more than a foot of snow over five days.

So to recap last year's hurricane season, uh we did have 13 named storms, which of five of those were hurricanes and three category five hurricanes.

Uh there's a couple in there I want to highlight uh made the um uh hurricane Aaron actually never made landfall but killed nine people based on uh riptides and based on uh some of the other conditions that happened around islands and around the eastern seaboard of the United States.

Hurricane Melissa also was a cat five of just tremendous proportions.

Um it was a monster storm that had uh and at one point it underwent extremely rapid intensification of 70 miles per hour in 24 hours.

Um this kind of storm is something that we can probably continue to expect just based on global warming and other factors.

Uh so it's something that we really really need to prepare for and keep in mind.

So I want to highlight a few things too, because we keep talking about Sam uh Safer Simpson, and you know, whenever whenever the hurricane comes in, we see uh the weather channel and everybody else sensationalizing the fact that there is a lot of wind.

Wind definitely is a factor within a hurricane, and wind is something that can be destructive overall.

But the major factors that determine destruction are water.

Um, here's a few things to chew on based on that.

Uh, flooding accounts are about 86% of direct hurricane fatalities.

Uh while damage is generally more repairable, what dam or water damage tends to destroy major infrastructure, whether it's electrical water, um schools, you name it.

It is very, it's a lot harder to recover from.

Uh FEMA's rough rule in all this is uh between 60 and 90 percent of hurricane-related losses are water, whether it's surge in flooding, while only about uh 10 to 40 are wind related.

Um, why is this all important?

And I mentioned this because there is a definite lack of people that are properly prepared for flooding within the city of Richmond and actually within the country at large.

Uh many people don't realize that if you do have a water-based incident uh within your home, your standard insurance will probably not cover it.

So it's something that uh we need to get out there, we need to be prepared for uh for those kind of events by buying uh national uh flood insurance, the NFIP program, which is uh is available to everybody within the city and is available to everybody nationwide.

Um, and it's something that I think last count that I uh that I researched a couple days ago, only about 2% of the population of the city has it, even though uh there are a lot more structures within that floodplain and uh in that flood zone.

And just kind of uh an illustration for that too, is if if you do have an issue with with water, if you do have issues with uh with the destruction of a house based on a water issue, um if you're counting on FEMA to come to the rescue, there is a lot of ambiguity with FEMA right now.

We really don't know where that where they stand.

Um also just based on on uh past experience, the maximum individual assistance grants that FEMA can put out are somewhere in the range of about 43,600 for housing and then another 43,600 for other needs.