 engaging people that Will take on those leadership roles is crucial to you know So it's nice to talk about that, but there has to be an actually a concrete organizing plan for the leadership Great point. So one other thing there are trainings remote emergency management trainings for the folks who are going to be in charge of this in the City and there's like an operations like you know center. That's like that crops up an emergency, right? So there are all these components that are sort of known and done There's trainings we're looking folks up with and then you practice it right you practice that you see how it works And part of that we've heard early in our research of the can network is just what you said It's hard to sustain it in between emergencies. And so you know, that's the question is how do you find those leaders? How do you keep the can network simmering in between times of emergency? So I see some other hands. I also would love to ask you all that question of What would have worked better for you, right? Like this is the sort of moment of brainstorm of and do you have experience in the can network? What are your ideas that might make a can never just so everyone's on the same page? That's this local neighborhood like leadership, right? It's like you have your designated neighborhood you have a leader, you know what everybody needs, you know Who got flooded? You know who needs a supply, right? You know it's sort of like this like first pass alert and then support Neighborhood by neighborhood which we have had experiences. It was just alluded to in my pillar So I think the can neighborhood started up so I live up off Deerfield off Terrace Wait, what are we Park Park West Park West? I always get all the mob killer Park West neighborhood. And so we had what worked really well for us was Getting fed information so that we could feed it out. And so we created mechanisms of communication through We have a Facebook page, but then a lot of folks were like well, I don't use Facebook So we did a listserv so we collected everyone's emails And then we got down to the lower level which is just going to talk to your neighbors So I know almost I would say 80% of my neighbors just talking to them and understanding what their needs are and You know and you should we did that when there wasn't an emergency, right? So it's building that foundation and that relationship and taking the time and effort to understand your neighbors like And then we had a little like a board. I don't remember we had those like truck those uh, like oh, right We had the like a sandwich board sandwich boards for that was another way of communication So as soon as you pull to the neighborhood we posted like Flyers and information so as people walked by, you know, if they didn't you know have email or Facebook or they don't want to come out and talk to you It was like more of a passive way to like communicate information. So I personally like the can network I think it was a great way to bring the neighborhood together and inform people That was not activated during the flood at all because we were not given any information to pass along to our neighbors So I think that was a break. That's an opportunity for improvement There's no longer any city support for it. So, okay They well even if I mean the the structure exists And so how do we continue to build that and think of a way to enhance it? And I think it was just information that we needed to pass along So I think there's just an opportunity for to improve That's your question. Yeah So first of all, thank you for for doing that I think that there are some elements of it that still live so one in one component of all of this is either Reviving reinventing reinvigorating whatever the existing and old network and that's sort of improving upon that existing structure And that is one of the sort of alert Methods that will go in conjunction with what the city is doing or what any other volunteer networks would be doing There were so many things that happened this July that were I mean a lot of them were initiated by the city And then the city didn't sort of stand up and take credit for those things So there were a lot of things that the city was doing for example Setting up the the hub tasking the parks department and Montpelier alive to sort of run that thing was an effort of the city and A lot of things happened because we we got lucky We had some of the right people in the right places at the right time and they just made it work So part of the work that we're doing is figuring out who is aware of the can network who was part of the volunteer hub What did the city do? What did individual businesses do that did it didn't work and then trying to piece all those things together into the toolkits So we're talking about and bring all that together into one larger more robust plan Sorry before we go there. I think Part of your plan I hope it is but one of the things that was missing during the response was an opportunity for improvement was including the Public Health Department So the state Public Health Department I work in public health. That's my background and in the world of epidemiologists They have emergency response plans to respond to these emergencies and that is what they do for a living And it was lacking in terms of our PPE our public health response our safety for our our citizens So they don't get sick. They did get sick It wasn't necessarily ported through the health department or through the hospitals But it was an unintended consequence that could have been prevented and I hope it's going to be part of this plan Thank you Look that goes back to the Great financial crash when there was a lot of worry about Seniors et cetera not having Services support so it was a way of trying to organize the neighborhoods to check in on people who might be having financial difficulties Yeah, and I think it speaks to and Adrienne brought this up as well that not everyone he not everybody Communicates or receives information in the same way And so while the city was was putting out messages and Monterey alive was putting out messages There are folks that just don't receive messages in that way So we have to sort of diversify the way that messages get out even if it's your next-door neighbors knocking on miss McGillicuddy's door to saying what do you need here some water and this is what's happening, right? And that's the beauty of this right? I think our whole concept here is my pillar is small enough We're large but we're small enough that what Adrian just described is your experiences in the you know can leader is You know exactly everyone in your neighborhood and what they need and how they get information be a knock on the door or social Media or an email and the only way to do that is at that level of granularity and it layers So that's like the surefire way that everyone that neighborhood is getting Communicated to and then there's like layers from there up to the city and then the state and great point about the public Dan and Adrienne So I hope you'll welcome a call when we get to that and we reach out to you and say what what experience and knowledge Can you help share with us? We still use that structure in our neighborhood all the time by the way I do have the database of the original leadership Thank you. That'll be super useful Having social services and mental health be part of The any planning for emergency response. I'm still in my Therapy practice. I'm still you know, obviously still it isn't that long. I'm still supporting people and picking up the pieces They're traumatic reactions to the flood and I'm sure that's true for an therapist in in the area I I would love for there to have been a And for there to be kind of a structure to to mobilize a much more organized response There's a group of trauma therapists from the Burlington area who I know we're Reaching out down here and kind of trying to send Um, essentially sending therapy missionaries I just quickly want to make a pitch to like I mean this is I feel like excellent feedback You know exactly right right and the goals of this kind of group coming out of it are things like that comprehensive Response plan right that is actionable for businesses individuals in the city, right? The neighborhood network that helps with that neighbor to neighbor assistance But also like this this thing that susan is really leading of this long-term recovery group I just want to talk like really quickly like what that is like we've seen incredible response to support businesses Right and the municipality But really what to be frank like You know, I think the original narrative coming out of the flood was like our downtown businesses are devastated and in berry It's all residential, right? And in fact, it's a much more complicated narrative, right 400 individual households or individuals Applied for FEMA assistance, right? And so across the state This is not like my computer inventing something new there's systems with the agency of human services Leah's a representative from capstone who's working on part of this to really set up You know, you've got if your house gets devastated you've got insurance You've got FEMA you've got the state fund of last resort And then you have your neighbors and you're never going to be made whole Right and so this final gap is the work of this long-term recovery group And it's not just it's financial resources, but it's labor it's materials It's support emotional support all of those things And so I just really encourage you folks as you're kind of like spreading the word about the work of this commission stealing There's an opportunity for everybody to engage engaged right now in this long-term recovery group We need more members than it and we need Additional energy So I want to give space for anyone who wants to get up and move to water shed or adoptive downtown Thank you so much. This is exactly the type of conversation And this is not the end That would be great, right? We're just gonna give you another minute for people to turn over here Thanks for those who stayed and we'll get even get more into it So We'll give it a minute We'll get started and we'll let people join as they come high to the newcomers and thanks for those who were part of our last round We actually just had a great You know feedback session, which is exactly what we're looking for. So just another recap This is the emergency response preparedness You know, how can we be prepared in light of the next The next one be it flood or whatever it might be And we just had some amazing conversation around the community action networks Locals or neighborhood alert systems. Some people have had experience actually currently be on those And some gaps and you know great feedback that was identified and we have Suzanne here as well as a resource to talk about long-term recovery So I'm just going to open it up to folks because we just had a really robust and I could tell there was more ideas Percolating that we didn't even get to so yes I would just like to talk about long-term recovery. Great And I don't have my prop with me tonight. I wish I did it's tape measure But the tape measure goes up to here Okay That's how high the water was in my house on lower stick street Okay, we are still not in our houses We were put through the meat grinder at your expense Hey I really appreciate you sharing that and it exposes so much of the complexities and the human element So if anybody wants to contact me get any kind of information, you're never going to be whole never and flood insurance Not good. Yeah flood insurance will pay for maybe a third of your total damage So if you're ever flooded You're never going to be Really cannot thank you enough for sharing that because we need to hear this exact story And that's why we have a long-term recovery group. But as you're saying, we're nowhere. We're eight months in and we're no Some of us are ready to move a little bit. We're told we can't All right, so they're This country has had so many natural disasters. It should be a seamless process you're assigned People that work with you through the whole process I was on the phone yesterday for four hours With sba because their portal to send them information wasn't working This is the nutty stuff that happens. It just wants you just you just want to bang your head against the wall Thank you. I'm so sorry you're going through that and your experience does Help because really as someone said earlier over 400 So seven homes as you just mentioned substantially damaged over 400 homes affected and I kind of think that's not really well known You know by your neighbors I'm saying a berry and the situation of berry is just horrible horrible horrible horrible It's stunk so bad for weeks after the flood. I mean those poor people I feel lucky compared to Yeah We are collaborating with berry in some ways and we hope to deepen that collaboration We really want to use this to sort of make it better the next time. So I'm the resource Really appreciate it and you mentioned layers of maddening bureaucracy is part of your Thing as well and that's what we're trying to investigate We just got off a call folks from the department of financial regulation We're doing some research on other tools In addition to flood insurance because there's this acknowledgement that they don't make you whole and what does that look like? Could that be you know for the city to buy for the city to be umbrella for residents, right? So I think there is an acknowledgement of what you're saying and trying to support So what happens is every time you go a little step you get a new person So you start over from the beginning. Yeah, how yours I have my story Memorized every word and every inflection in my speech about it And it happens all the time Well, I appreciate you being here and being going to say it yet again to us because it does matter I'm lucky I can still laugh Thank you Thank you Kate I'm really encouraged to hear of these conversations with the department of financial regulation because I have An idea rattling around in my head that has to do with better ways to help people get resources after the floods You know, maybe it's a formal insurance program But we've also seen an outpouring in this community and we know people who weren't affected who want to help people Who were affected who want to help people have flood insurance might not like to put their money toward that again What might we do with that energy and those resources? I wonder if there's some sort of community driven grassroots mutual aid style local insurance A product that would be legal to create And that would give people some sense of assurance that there's going to be something there for them And it's going to be less traumatized. They should access it other more conventional resources. So this is an idea that I've made up Great We'll take the seat of your idea and see what's there See if it can go. I love that. Thank you very much. Kate. This is um, this is how I cope with this is What are their ideas? How can we move forward? How can we sort of keep moving? Right? Um, which is my own personal coping mechanism In the light of disaster. Yes I'm Katherine Probo and I I just want to Tell a tiny bit of our story because I don't know if it's been brought up or not We live up Up by from our college And the groundwater Seeked into the basement. We had a stomp pump in the long spot My husband and I stayed awake 38 straight hours two shot backs We were thrilled lucky Came out way way way better than everybody else But in terms of preparedness and adaptiveness, I don't I haven't heard anyone mention And had exactly the same 36 hours that you did and it was Shocking, you know, because we weren't we were not expecting that at all And I think what you're saying is part of this general alertness of We are living in a different world now It is a wetter world It will always be wetter and we can need to be adaptive in all these ways and and maybe there And you know, again, like lots of talk about like lifting up utilities And as a reason we can all do that together and this idea of maybe All mobiliar can be privy to these conversations because they might be strategies. We all want and it doesn't have to be necessarily located by a stream a river a lake It can be groundwater driven in terms of preparedness and set back Exactly. Thank you for the people on the hills. I'd be worried about a landslide Yeah Yeah, pretty much deadly Yes No, go ahead. I'll pass for the moment. Oh, I don't think anyone else was a cool Okay. Um, well, I was just going to say first of all that I had a somewhat similar experience also at a higher elevation Um, um my sun pump kept up. I was very lucky, but you're at I'm 100 with you that that um Nobody is completely You know safe Yeah, and the same was I mean we're sitting there thinking what about our neighbors because the three of the four neighbors were all gone We couldn't even go check on their houses or anything. So when you think about preparing this That's great, but if you're holding on to those four Yes, so That's a very good point by the way And we can maybe get into that again with this group a previous group We did talk a lot about the idea of this community neighborhood action Which is a way to be connected with those neighbors as that first line of defense sharing resources Calling saying can I go into your basement check out on your you know, you tell you whatever it is So this is what we're very excited about is we just feel like we've got momentum in this small enough You know ready enough community that we can do that layer that level of granularity that might support what you're saying At least for neighborhood to neighbor. Please come And then I was also just going to circle back to what people were saying about public health and I I also work in public health at the and for the Vermont department of health So maybe we can talk a little more later about how we can collaborate We'd love to and back to sort of are the idea of this Local emergency operations plan The idea is you build the infrastructure and you build the relationships including with the state folks public health, right? Like all the different levels When you're not in an emergency so that when the emergency strikes those relationships are there, you know who to call You know, who's the authority? I we heard this so we've heard this so much I think we'll still hear who is the authority to say yes or no and there was confusion, you know, and that's why there was like not like yes, this is the declaration of what to do with You know PPE or with mucking out or whatever that is So I think that's really focused on that as we create the plan as we help create the plan So during the emergency I work for the state and so we were in age of commerce And so we were finding ourselves in the same kind of position like who's responsible For responding to the businesses or responding to so we we kind of made up the playbook a bit as we were going I mean the state does a really good job in terms of its emergency respond to this to Saving lives and you know clearing roads and you know the things that have to happen first But you know that plan like for the 48 hours after like how do we support the businesses and the property owners with consistent information, you know and and to get through kind of the now unfortunately, there's a lot of experts in town, but You know like having that roadmap of not just, you know, locally here Here's our roles, you know Katie and Alec were kind of making up, you know, like all of a sudden they're assigned like you're in charge of businesses You're in terms, you know, in charge of residents like having that in the plan in place and What's the role of the chamber of commerce or what's the role of these other entities regionally or statewide? So, you know, whether it's me or you know, somebody else In that position assigned at that different agencies would be helpful for all of us I love it and that's exactly the vision here is like very clear expectations now with enough time to actually practice I mean, that's the thing that's beautiful that they have trainings and they actually do practice You know exercises everything from a sort of more of a intellectual table top of who's on first This happens who do you call and who's in your, you know the speed dial to actually like practicing a full Activity of you know, this disaster happens. What do you do? Um, so right having that established and then even like worked in it a little bit to make sure and you write the city The state businesses volunteers. This is what we've heard from a lot of people too of just like Who is in charge? Yeah Um, we also have to The technology we have and the technology we're going to have available to us because rainstorms of that intensity Usually come with wind and the one we had didn't and so we kept power So the some pumps worked and the you know, the shop that's worked But we need to be thinking about you know, what happens in this storm That's more like a hurricane or a tropical storm Irene where you also wind and you're likely to lose power So setting up those systems in advance as well So Being realistic Can I just add that we were we were in conversations with um with playing field and they brought us a point of like cellular problems Like actually we're not so I career stuff on satellite phone Like having another form of communication beyond like when the cell phone cell powers go down You can pick up a satellite phone if you'll remember those They claim two things but being able to have some form of two to be Not sure that's a solution Yep, well we've heard people mentioned sirens and stuff and there's a real variants of opinion Some of the things that I hear people talking about is sort of one of the elements that we've talked about For example knowing what happened to you last time and then during blue skies times thinking the next time the water comes What do I need to do so that you already know ahead of time if there's wind if there's power outage If there's a forest fire, how am I going to respond to those things and sort of Not just knowing your own so that there's the city has a responsibility Volunteer networks will have a responsibility But each resident and each business owner will have in some way their own responsibility to know what You individually are going to need to do and then once networks are in place be able to communicate that ahead of time for example If on december 18th Was it the when when that had happened if we had already known From previous time because we'd had the perfect situation and enough time to prepare which we did but For example that oh this business needs this many people to get stuff out of the basement these businesses This is how what we need then when there's a flood of volunteers There's already the volunteer hub already knows these things for example All right, you take two people to botanica three people to enna four people go to julios or what have you and similarly with various neighborhoods that that type of pre-planning work during blue skies and then working on the the exercises in between allows us to kind of Be prepared when it happens. It's going to take a lot of research development implementation and then Keeping it alive because what happens to these types of plans in a lot of various is You go years without Something and then by the time it happens everybody who was experienced from last time has already died or moved away or whatever I mean, maybe this is part of your stakeholder analysis, but I'll feel bad if I leave this room. I don't say it The school should also be involved You know when there's any type of you know delay an opening or like whatever they have the technology to send out to every Single family and popular and rocks very so I just want to make sure that is part of here We there might be But I want to assume so yeah, thank you. This is yeah. Well, this is why we're having this meeting now This is all in like the preliminary stages of development. We've got our goal. We've got our priorities We want to hear input and now you know going into the actual sort of writing development phase and again There will be opportunities for I love that you bring it to life that example because that's like the exact point of like What do we need to do there are actually checklist for example that exists already that we've been looking at developing Like expanding upon for business for a resident, you know, what are your needs? I think we can do that Back and forth, but I think that's where we are not going to develop this in a Close room. You know these have to be really responsive to the proper parties, you know Good point about the school sorry I'm thinking so are you partnering with the remand and what is the management is that's I mean, I'm assuming they Write the responsibility. He's like I was just They would take a leave of the actual idea a couple things We have some folks that are Part of embers management and tangential to them on the commission So we're in sort of like a real flow of information there And then too, we've gotten incredible advisors who have already sort of like just said here's everything I know call us anytime, you know what I mean, and they're the ones saying, you know, we have a training That's for, you know, must take for anyone, you know Who is the municipal leaders who are the captains when this something happens? And of course the folks in city, you know city government who are those people are very responsive and say yes Sign us up for the next one So yes, and the beauty of this is every town has to have one of these in place and we do have one in place but it's like the First past year is like the continuing operations, right like what we've all seen now is it must be so much broader than that To do all the things that sort of mark and and we've been saying, you know for businesses and residents So that's the part that is not like mandated, but It's done. Let me just say it is done. We do we are not creating this from scratch You have to have a robust plan like this and we we have templates and advisors who are going to help us To speak just a little bit more to that I mean in the case of the city, for example, the city has An excellent plan for what the city needs to do to maintain the city's Assets to continue the operation so the fire But it also cannot be our firefighters and police who come Responds to the flood needs in my personal opinion because Who's going to respond to a fire when all the firemen are mucking out basements? Who's going to be we need police and fire to be there to do the work of police and fire departments But there have been so the city has a good plan It's just limited in scope and doesn't include what are we going to do at your house When it's full of water, right? So there are other communities in Vermont Bethel is one example that has A very robust plan they unfortunately kind of let their plan die But at its inception it was it was it was a really good plan and sort of laid out the volunteer networks will do this Individual residents and businesses will be responsible for doing this The government will be responsible for doing these things and so we're using that as a It's not a jumping off point, but it's a great reference point to us Yes We're going to build on that sure I was just going to say you know the other thing that we could think about is You know sister communities that maybe are like in this place flooding effects that we had Not every like Addison county wasn't hit the July floods Well, if you have a sister community in Addison county You could get equipment from or get supplies from or fans or whatever it is It's not always going to work that way. Sure because it might be a you know It's not a storm that impacts the entire city It could be a flood I think it begs us to kind of think about that a little bit because there's certainly a lot of across state borders into You know New Hampshire into New York where it might be able to get build those relationships a bit So if you have a break to see they can be at least aware and supportive and have that connection I that's a great idea. Thanks. I love that idea. Thank you Thinking when I see the footage of what happened in Maine Recently, I keep feeling like if we were three years down We would be in such a much better position to sort of offer them our experience and our tools But you know, we're still we're still working it out at this point and we're actually thinking about the creation of this robust sort of, you know leo be the long the emergency operations plan as potentially a template that could be Fill the whole PDF for every town in Vermont because we do feel like we've got the energy We've got this commission and every town needs one of these and very few actually have them It's like as big as we're thinking about this one. So we really actually would love to accelerate progress elsewhere Yes Has there been discussion about how to keep the momentum going? I mean assume the flood next flood isn't for 10 years We all have a short memory. Yes, and everybody's going to disperse and nobody's going to be here So what how do we keep this going so that There's always somebody that's prepared or somebody with institutional knowledge that knows what to do It's a great question And the answer is no, we're not because you're not going to let us do that and we're not going to let us do that I mean, that's a very high in the sky kind of notion But it has to be written into the thing of what is the schedule and who are the players that need to come together every Six months every 12 months. What have you rain or shine? Do tabletop exercises do broader live exercises or what happens? And one cool thing that we've been learning is we're getting to know this language and this this plan You know what it is all about is that it's like really the in an emergency You need the captain and the deputy right and they can they don't need to be specific humans They don't even need to be specific positions. It's actually more about the personality Like is this a good manager under stress? So I'm also choreographer and so you can sort of write that into this emergency operations like plan and then, you know Center and that those people could be even changing depending on, you know Turnover and other things but to mark's point is you have to have a practice schedule You have to keep to it because again, this isn't just for floods. This could be for anything So that's one very mechanical I think the answer to your question as far as momentum I spend a lot of time thinking about that bigger picture question How do we really get consensus and rally Our community together around making big possible changes here that are really going to make us more resilient more You know flood ready for the next time, you know, probably even more in the watershed adaptive downtown groups Big projects. Maybe that we've not been able to move to completion yet They've been in every plan for the last 35 years. Why and that's a big part of this commission is Understanding where did it get stuck and can we unstick it and I believe your point about keeping momentum and energy Is the only way we're going to really make major change that could really truly make us more resilient And public education is a big part of that I think we we're seeing is a lot of these projects are related to flood mitigation and no one's connected those dots It's like we've been able to move x forward If we come together and say, you know what that saves this many feet of flood You know storage next time around which means this many millions of dollars in sort of like savings and heartbreak And really tell that story and connect these dots We have a moment now that I think we have to take advantage of to make systemic changes that will last You know on their own. So anyway, that's just a more philosophical I think response to you because the public education piece of this I think is going to be critical and you'll see that in the next year as this all rolls out Just a two minute heads up. I'm going to ring the bells in a couple of minutes. Oh man. Okay. Thank you I just want to ask if you've um Looked into the incident command system at all because the structure you were just describing with people stepping into those rules Is that that is like that is the incident command system? Absolutely, and actually I happen to personally have had some experience post-ireen in government and uh The V-trans incident command centers was sort of like What made that response happen? And I just talked to scott rogers who actually works national life now Who's just like doesn't live in mom failure but said put me in coach. I'm ready to advise you all anyway You want I want to succeed and he was in charge of those incident command centers So just just to show you a little bit of like the behind under the hood What we're doing in the commission who we're talking to and it's amazing who's coming out to say I want to help however I can and it's that sort of expertise. That's just been Invaluable. Thank you So I have a Push over here comment If not you're gonna go nothing. I'll have to respond to those gentlemen. I think sustainability is like Like should be actually at the forefront so To answer that you should be able to answer that first and thinking about where this lives And how do you put it into policy so that it's held accountable over the long term? So I mean is it a part of the city structure like this plan like where like this should be part of your Planning right now because this needs to have a home. Yes. So who is going to own it? I think you should get big g I think should be part of a policy that Is held accountable that is required to have those two annual, you know, whatever, but I don't know if it lives in the commission I don't know where it lives, but I think you the part of this process is That should really be like On the top. Yeah, rather than like going to do all this stuff like where is it going to live and who is going to own this? Because it could just die. I've seen programs like this die and it's Terrible. Yeah, it's such a good way. I just wanted to speak to that for a second The commission isn't met as you've heard been sort of say it's not meant to be necessarily a permanent structure But we're more like a catalyst or an incubator and so the example of this plan There is my this one. It's like This is a little bit less tricky because it's super congregate There is literally a plan that will be a product and then we will have an exercise and this one is more straightforward it really needs to be embedded in the mechanics of city government and That's where it's supposed to live. That's where it's supposed to live by like all through, you know, works of management And that's why the first conversation we had was with the city and I just want to say again Like it was an incredible conversation because they said thank you. Yes, we know we need this and we could Really appreciate the capacity. We've so much to do We would love to spend all of our energy on this and we just simply cannot right? So I think they really see this as partners bless you It's sort of added added capacity, but we got that by an early so that they because we said let's just No assumptions here. We're not going to go right help you write this big plan You know consultants in if it's not going to become embedded and you know, let's just make sure Not mincing words from day one and really we're all on the same page about that. So it's a very good high level point I believe every project the submission touches that you'll hear in all these different groups They're going to have different answers about where they live. What's the long term? Okay, thank you so much everyone. This is just the beginning. Thanks