 Good morning, everyone, and thanks for being here today. As you know, Thursday night and into Friday, we had heavy rains in parts of Addison County. In fact, it was a month's worth of rain, six inches in just a three-hour period. In Rutland, Swiftwater teams who were pre-deployed completed over 20 rescue operations, and Commissioner Morrison will have more on our ongoing emergency response efforts. These new storms also had an impact on our infrastructure, and we'll get a transportation update from Secretary Flynn and the Federal Highway Administration, who have been key partners during the emergency, and will be equally as important as we rebuild. It's hard to believe that it's only been about a month since we experienced the first severe flooding. Suddenly, it seems like it's been much longer, but it seems that we have teams across the state that have continued to respond to the many challenges and intense storms we experience almost every day. I want to again express my sincere appreciation to all those who stepped up from town road crews on the front lines. B-trans and contractors getting main roads open back up. Our emergency operations center workers volunteers and many, many, many others. Even though we continue to face obstacles because of our oversaturated soils, the next month or so will be an opportunity to focus on cleanup needs and efforts. That means finishing our work on debris removal, including that of the condemned mobile homes and immediate infrastructure work. This includes incredibly challenging work by our municipal road crews. The numbers you've heard from us before and will again today from Secretary Flynn represent only our state roads. But we know there are many municipal roads that were hard hit as well, and now that we're catching up on our state roads, B-trans will continue reaching out to local partners to see how we can assist and help them. After we get through this phase heading into the fall, we need to be at a point where the conversation is more about recovery, mitigation work, and revitalization. From my perspective, that means merging our flood recovery efforts and the community revitalization work we'd already begun using historic federal ARPA funds. As you know, we dedicated hundreds of millions to this work for things like housing, water, sewer, stormwater, infrastructure, climate change, mitigation, economic development, and more. Lifting communities up, especially those left behind for far too long is even more important now. And coordinating these efforts is how we can best build back stronger. That's why I named Doug Farnham, who's with us today as Chief Recovery Officer. As Deputy Secretary of the Agency of Administration, Doug was charged with coordinating our federal ARPA funding programs and with his vast and diverse background, he's the right person to make sure we do all this work in the most effective and efficient way possible. We know we have a long road ahead, but I'm confident Vermonters will continue to pull together and keep Vermonters strong. So with that, I'll turn it over to Commissioner Morrison. Thank you, Governor. Good morning and thanks for being here. We've continued to have unsettled weather, necessitating staging and deployment of our swift water rescue assets. Last week, teams were busy on Thursday night in Middlebury and Friday night in Rutland. Localized flooding necessitated the evacuation of 35 individuals. There was one injury reported and one swift water boat was significantly damaged during a rescue. This brings the number of lives rescued to 216 in the past month. Additionally, teams have assisted with 162 evacuations. For context, a normal year sees approximately six or so rescues and approximately 30 evacuations. During the same timeframe in the past month, hazmat teams have responded to 90 calls. For context, last year in 2022, there were 135 total calls. And our rapid assessment teams have inspected 880 homes and businesses. In short, the Department of Public Safety assisted by both in-state and out-of-state partners has completed more missions this past month than we normally see in many years combined. Until today's rain ends, we will continue to have urban search and rescue assets which includes swift water rescue teams staged in the western part of the state. As of last night, 211 has received just shy of 6,000 reports of damage to residences and businesses. 85% of the calls were from individuals and 15% were 912 calls were from businesses. Washington County has accounted for one third of all 211 reports with just over 2,000 calls coming from Washington County. And a little bit about debris. As of yesterday, 4,432 tons of debris had been removed under the state contract. This is on top of all the debris that has been coordinated for removal at the local level. There are currently four municipalities using the state contract and six more towns that will be joining the state contract work by week's end. If your community is struggling to create a plan for debris removal or you're having trouble accessing a hauler, please have your local emergency management director contact the State Emergency Operations Center for assistance. Debris removal is a top priority right now and will be for the next few weeks. In addition to the obvious areas related to high density neighborhoods and business districts, we wanna locate and assist those who live on the outskirts or back roads and may need help with debris removal. Toward that end, we are working with six local emergency medical services agencies throughout the state to help prioritize and coordinate volunteer assistance for our most vulnerable citizens. These agencies will also be working with the Agency of Transportation to help identify overlooked flood debris and arrange for the removal of debris. Lastly, a few words about hazardous materials. The State of Vermont Hazardous Materials Collection site at the former Middlesex State Police Barracks at 1078 U.S. Route 2 in Middlesex will remain open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through this Saturday, August 12th and we will be able to collect household hazardous wastes and these are products labeled caution, toxic, danger, hazard, warning, poisonous, reactive, corrosive or flammable and that's including things like paint, charcoal lighter, oven cleaner, drain cleaner, pesticides and propane or other gas cylinders. Businesses with hazardous material can bring up to 10 five-gallon containers of flood-related hazardous materials to the State of Vermont Collection site in Middlesex. After Saturday, this Saturday, Vermonters will need to contact their local solid waste management entity for a list of drop-off locations and dates for the seasonal collection events. That's all for today. I will turn things over to General Roy from FEMA. Thank you, ma'am. Governor, good morning. Under the current major disaster declaration, FEMA is supporting Vermont to meet the immediate needs after the storms and to help kick off recovery. We're working with Vermont's communities to assess the damages from the storms in order to provide funding under the Public Assistance Program. We're also working with Governor's staff to assess the need for temporary housing. As of today, 4535 residents have applied for assistance resulting in over $11.6 million in financial aid. FEMA conducts follow-up calls with every applicant. As of today, we have contacted over 1,000 applicants resulting close to an additional $1 million in funding as we update their status. To find out if you're eligible for assistance, you can call FEMA at 1-800-621-3362, or you can visit one of our Disaster Recovery Centers for in-person assistance. The deadline for assistance is September 12. In addition to the five Disaster Recovery Centers already open in Berry, Barton, Brutman, Springfield, and Waterbury, we're opening up four new centers this week at the following locations. In Wyndham County at the Jamaica Fire Department in Wyndham County at the Jamaica Fire Department in Jamaica, tomorrow. In Caledonia County at the Danville K-12 School in Danville, tomorrow. In Memorial County at the Northern Vermont University, McClellan Hall on Thursday. And finally, in Washington County at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, 36 College Street in Montpelier on Friday. To date, FEMA has approved more than $11.6 million in assistance and actually dispersed into people's bank accounts $11.2 million. Our disaster survivor assistance teams going door-to-door have visited over 17,000 homes in 83 of the hardest hit communities in the nine declared counties for individual assistance. And lastly, our partners at the Small Business Administration have approved 139 loans for a total of $6.2 million to homeowners, renters, and businesses. Thank you, and I'll be followed by Secretary Flynn. Secretary, I would like to compliment you having driven all over Vermont looking at our DRCs. It's just absolutely phenomenal the work you've just after doing it. Thank you, sir. Good morning, everybody. I'll give you an update on the current situation on state-owned infrastructure. Today, four roads remain fully closed, and those are Vermont Route 116 in Middlebury, I-91 Northbound in Hartford, the off-ramp to 89, Vermont 131 in Weathersfield, and Vermont 125 in Hancock. Seven roads remain partially open. One road was reopened yesterday from damage caused by the storm. Now that road is Vermont 110. It had four different sites that were damaged. Those have all been repaired with temporary bridges. However, I wanna know, Vermont 110 had a V-trans construction project prior to the storm, so in Eastbury near the roundabout, it's still closed from that project. One road has also fully closed during the storm, which is Vermont 125 in Hancock. Over the weekend, we had to turn a bridge into one lane due to some rain damage that occurred Friday night, and the damage was more extensive than we thought, so it's a full closure at this time. Since the beginning of the storm, 143 state roads have reopened, which were once closed. The one bridge that remains closed is the one I just mentioned a moment ago on Vermont 125 in Hancock. Our bridge inspectors at AOT inspected 13 bridges yesterday for a total now of 565 bridges statewide that have been inspected, and I will give you some data as we close out the first month. This pertains to work that AOT has done on state-owned infrastructure. So far, we've identified 1,102 damaged sites on our road or bridge network. 826 impaired or impacted culverts. We have performed 142,000 linear feet of ditch work, 20 miles of new paving, and of the bridges I told you that we inspected, 280 of those have been in rural Vermont communities. We have so far used 366,000 pounds of rock installed 7,000 feet of guardrail and worked on 236 slopes or slides, again, all just on the state network. I have mentioned a week or so back that of our active construction projects prior to the storm, we did incur some damage on those sites. Initially, 12 sites were damaged. We have recovered 11 of those and are preparing them to resume. Initially, five projects were stopped so that contractors could move on to help towns in an urgent situation. Two of those five have now restored, three still remain stopped. With respect to active railroad, 11.17 miles remains closed and that is the piece through Berry up to Websterville. Public transit, we still continue to maintain free service between Johnson and Morrisville and Hardwick in Morrisville. There are no issues at the state-owned airports. There are no issues on the two state-owned dams. Today, AOT is working in 28 rural Vermont communities working with the towns. And we are also joined today by 39 private contractors on AOT projects. I'd like to give you an update and close on some good news with respect to the LaMoyle Valley Rail Trail. We are very pleased to officially announce the reopening of more than one half of the LaMoyle Valley Rail Trail. The LaMoyle Valley Rail Trail runs from St. John'sbury to Swanton and is approximately 93 miles in length and 20. The 30.3 mile section from Swanton to Cambridge Junction is now fully open for public use. The 19.5 mile section from St. John'sbury to Walden is now fully open for public use. These openings represent 49.8 miles of the entire length of the LaMoyle Valley Rail Trail. AOT anticipates reopening additional sections of the trail during the next several weeks and months and into next year. You'll see on the screen some of the damage that we've encountered along the LaMoyle Valley Rail Trail. There are six different slides that I believe will rotate on the screen. The remaining 43.2 miles of the LVRT between Cambridge and Walden remain closed until further notice due to many different types of damage, including complete bridge washouts, complete culvert washouts, and severe slope failures that are blocking the trail or have washed out the trail entirely. A total of 103 sites remain damaged and closed. The agency has hired contractors for 57 of the sites as of this point and is working to get the remaining work under contract for repair very soon. Among the damaged sites that are still closed, 16 will require civil engineering and will be long-term projects with repairs that are not likely to be completed until sometime in the early part of 2024. The next immediate area of focus will be the 15-mile segment from Cambridge Junction to Morrisville. This section will have an expected reopening early this fall, which we will announce in time. The remaining fully closed segments of the trail are just that, they are fully closed. All trail users must not access these areas due to active construction for your own safety. Although some areas appear passable, the surface and embankments may be compromised and could present unforeseen hazards. We have a website, Vermont Rail Trail System website. I will read it. It's HTTPS colon backslash, backslash. Railtrails.vermont.gov, backslash, trail, hyphen, updates, backslash. And I can provide that to you in writing. That concludes my report. Thank you, Governor. Who's up next? Oh, I'm sorry, Matthew. I was supposed to introduce Matthew DiGiovanni. Matthew is the head of engineering and operations for the Federal Highway Division for the Vermont Division Office. Thank you, Matthew. Morning. First of all, thank you to Secretary Flynn, Governor Scott, and Chief Engineer Gamal for their leadership and partnership throughout the response and recovery. On behalf of Secretary Buttigieg, Federal Highway Administrator Shailen Butt, Division Administrator Randy Wharton, and all of Federal Highway both in D.C. and Vermont, I will emphasize that working with the states to help people reassemble their lives, which often starts with restoring roads and bridges after the devastating floods is a priority for President Biden and the U.S. Department of Transportation. When disaster strikes, transportation is critically important to recovering communities. It is how supplies get in and out of those in need of medical care and how those in need of medical care get to the doctor. Federal support is key to getting states and local communities back up and running again alongside helping people return to their daily lives and regain a sense of normalcy. On July 11th, I think that's been noted, President Biden approved an emergency declaration for Vermont, which authorizes the Staff for Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act to save lives, protect property, public health and safety, and to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in the state. Federal Highway Administration works regularly with V-TRANS on putting out regular projects, but in this case, the Federal Highway's Emergency Relief Program reimburses states for expenses associated with damage from natural disasters or other emergency situations. Emergency Relief funding is relied upon by the states and has helped them rebuild in the aftermath of extreme weather and other catastrophic events that slam their communities. As our nation faces more frequent and unpredictable damage from severe weather events, the devastating impacts of climate change are evident. These funds will help states respond to these incidents as we work to build more sustainable transportation infrastructure that can better withstand these impacts for the years to come. I just want to say thank you for your continued partnership and we look forward to continue to work together. Thank you. Thank you very much. And again, without our federal partners, we would be very much challenged, more challenged than we are today. So my thanks to FEMA and FHWA for their continued support in our recovery. But we have a long ways to go. As Joe had mentioned, he was mentioning all the amounts of stone and paving and guide rail and so forth. And that's just in our response. We still have permanent work to do that we're going to stretch in to probably the next construction season. With that, I'll open up to questions. Do we have any updates on the license plate rollouts? Yeah, the details will be coming fairly soon. I'd say next week we'll have more for you. Governor, you talked about the start of this long-term recovery work. I know you said that you're working with engineers from the infrastructure and highway side of things, but does your administration plan to work with urban engineers or civil engineers about redesigning these communities or thinking how and where we should rebuild? Yeah, absolutely. We're starting those conversations as we speak today. So we're moving forward and trying to have those conversations again with our congressional delegation because a supplemental amount will be needed for some of those projects that we're envisioning and contemplating. So we'll see where it goes, but we are very much looking forward in terms of how do we protect ourselves more in the future. When you think about that in the long term, I mean, what does that look like from a mitigation architectural design and planning perspective? Yeah, it's about letting the water do what it needs to do and finding places for it to store, as well as protecting buildings from future damage and not building in areas where we should. So again, it's all across the board. It's fairly complicated when you start thinking about the hydraulics and hydrology, but I think that we're gonna learn from other states. We're gonna learn from some of what we have experienced in the past, what we've done right. I would use the Waterbury Complex as an example of what we did right and that sustained this flooding at this point in time. So we're going to have to do more of that, but we've had some success stories and other states have had success stories as well. So we'll learn from them and mitigate for the future. What's the status of Addison County as far as individual systems? Yeah, we at this point in time have not met that threshold. And again, with this newest event and this might be for Will Roy from FEMA. But typically, as I think I've explained in the past, typically FEMA will look at the storm system, one storm system and that's the event. And that was the case with Irene. We had one event and everything was covered under that declaration. This is a little different. We have had multiple, multiple systems that came in rapid fire after the initial event and created more damage. But everything has to come to an end in FEMA's eyes. I mean, they're trying to contain this. We are making the argument and we'll continue to make the argument that with the saturated soils that we have, that that's what's creating some of the impacts that we're seeing in Middlebury, Rotland and so forth. I heard we had the National Weather Service on for my daily briefing this morning. And it was an interesting fact that stuck with me because they said, we received in the valley last night, Waitfield, Warren Valley, we received an inch of rain last night. And typically under normal circumstances that one inch of rain would elevate the Mad River about a foot to foot and a half. That's what it would elevate that river to. Yesterday last night, we received an inch of rain, inch and a half of rain, and it rose five feet. So that just tells you everything that we're challenged by, the saturated soils, there's nowhere for the water to go. It goes into the river and elevates and that creates the flooding. So again, I believe we're in unusual times, but by FEMA standards, we have to contain this and end at some time. And we may have to seek another declaration if we can meet that threshold. But again, we're working out those details, we're still trying, we want people to still report to 211 so that we can determine whether we can meet another declaration or another threshold so that we can create another opportunity in a separate county. But so far, they have not met that. We don't know at this point. We haven't. Do you think the most prudent thing to do would be to file an appeal to get this added to the initial or request a new disaster declaration? We are contemplating all of the above what the best approach is. And again, it's not that they're being difficult, it's just that those are the guidelines and they have to follow them. And we're trying again, during this unusual time and unusual events, we're trying to make the case that this one's different and may be different in the future. Do you think the guidelines should change now with this final reality that we're on? I think that's something Congress will have to anticipate and talk about. It's out of our controls, out of FEMA's control. It's really about Congress making some decisions about what to do next. Will, do you want to add anything to that? It's always hard to follow in the government on those. But as the governor said, we are clearly recognizing that the weather patterns have certainly changed recently. If we look back on the history of FEMA, certainly since the stand up of the Department of Homeland Security, everybody turns to Katrina as a guideline, right? A lot of people don't recognize that or realize that one of the things that impacted FEMA under Katrina was actually the restructuring of this new Department of DHS, right, which the Congress recognized and restructured what FEMA can do under the Post-Katrina Reform Act. So every major disaster system the Congress looks at, the authorities that has given FEMA, and adjusted. We saw the same thing under Sandy. And then we saw the same thing under Maria. So it is the Congress that looks at it, and it makes authority changes for FEMA so that we can execute its intent. And as the governor said, we're recognizing that Vermont, this is a historic summer for flooding. And the delegation can utilize as authorities in Congress to put forward changes. And I'm sure many other states are looking at this the same way. Did you say that after the one intergrate while there's normally it, it raises about a foot? That's what they said, the National Weather Service said, in the valley and with that river in particular, with the mad river. I'm wondering if in the Budget Adjustment Act talks you have with the legislature this fall, will you be asking them to reallocate some of the current funding to flood recovery? Well, the Budget Adjustment, we wouldn't be having those conversations until January. We'll continue to utilize the resources we have at this point in time. But is that a possibility in January? We'll see. I mean, again, I don't want to take away from our efforts, long-term efforts with some of the ARPA dollars that we have already designated and appropriated. So again, a lot of our eggs in the Congressional basket. And hopefully they will be able to receive and obtain another capital expenditure out of the Congress. What's the status of the special appropriation? I know they're on recess right now, but where is that? No, they're still trying to put that together, waiting for information from us to give to them. We are in constant dialogue with them, and they've been very willing to hear any of the initiatives that we have contemplated. And they'll be putting that together during their break to present. Do you foresee, based on your conversations right now, that it would be introduced very shortly after they return? And I think it's probably the best question for them. I don't know how that will work and how their rules and whether you can just introduce a bill or not. I just don't understand their process. Yeah. Or do I care too? Could we, Commissioner Morrison, back for a second, for a little bit more details on. I think you mentioned 35 evacuations due to recent rank. Could you offer us more details on that? So between Thursday and Friday, there were 35 evacuations. I believe those were mostly in Rutland. There was definitely an active rescue from a person trapped in a car in Middlebury. In fact, three people on the roof of a car, I believe, in Middlebury. I will get you the details, because I have to say they're starting to smush together at this point. So you want specifically to know what the activity was in Rutland versus Middlebury? Yeah, just to make sure. Sure, happy to do that. Flooding or landslides? Flooding, I believe it was related to a water main break. But again, I'll get you the details. Addison in Rutland counties in the past couple days? There were a couple that were reported as landslides. But upon investigation, they were not. They were determined not to be landslides. But that was ripped in area. Yeah. Handcock and the two that come to mind. OK. Great. Thank you. Can you also get the information about the damage to this with boat and how that occurred and whether it was OK? Yeah, anecdotally, it was the water rose so high and they were making a rescue. And I believe it's like a rib craft type boat, not fiberglass, the soft sided boats. And it got hung up on a fence and it ripped out. But I can get you more detail on the nature of the damage. Thank you. I have a question for the governor if that's OK. Governor, you were getting ready to ride the rail trail before this storm. And I think you take a lot of pride, in fact, that the state put years and years of work into getting that trail up and running. It must be very disappointing to see the damage. Those pictures were heartbreaking to that trail. Tell me what's going through your mind when you see a marquee infrastructure project in the state just shredded by a storm like this. Very discouraging in many respects. But we'll rebuild it this time. We'll rebuild it again. But it's difficult for the communities that were really counting on this to tie them together for their economic development. And so personally, it's discouraging. But for them, it could be devastating economically. And so we're going to have to go back in there as quick as we can. Obviously, we wanted to make sure the road infrastructure was possible, and we're putting all our resources there and efforts there. But now we can move to another phase so that we can start rebuilding those sections. The infrastructure like that is particularly vulnerable to flooding, isn't it? Or the way that trail sort of hues to the riverbank in many locations. Can you just, O'Pine, or maybe Joe, or others explain how you'd go about rebuilding a trail that's essentially sort of right on the banks of a big river in the state? Well, again, it's on the rail bed. So it would have impacted the rail as well. But some of these, it's different in different locations. Some of it was debris getting hung up in the abutments. Some of it was slides, as you saw. And we'll just have to riprap some of those sections hard in the banks so that we can rebuild all the way up through to the top of the rails. This one doesn't look easy to riprap and get back up and running any time soon. But it's really sort of almost like a permanent sort of area. It will, I would say that that can be fixed. Not ready to put a dollar amount on that yet. Well, I mean, you've got experience in moving earth and sort of these sort of civil engineering projects. And so I just wanted to sort of, as we talk about rebuilding, Calvin's asking questions about how you repeal to be more resilient. There's a perfect example of a piece of infrastructure that's in tatters. We've got to rebuild it. But you can't move it, right? I mean, you can't just move it over 50 yards to get it out of the flood plain. How do you go about rebuilding infrastructure that is almost certain to be in the same location as it used to be? Can you raise that thing three feet? That seems unbelievable. This failure probably, I'd let the engineers decide that. But the failure started here, not there. That slid down so that it was probably the river is probably down here under mine, the slope, and that caused the failure. So hardening this down here is key to fixing that up there. I had a similar question when I was driving in past, I guess this question for Joe. Driving in from Waterbury past Montpelier, I saw the section of I-89 that failed during the floods and then you've repaired it. But is that repair going to hold up in the next flood? I mean, it looks like a patch of the exact spot that was undermined by the water coming off that cliff. How do you fix a highway that's in a narrow channel between two cliffs of granite or whatever? I mean, how do you do that? Probably you'll have to go back to the source as well, finding out why it came out over the ledge and maybe be able to divert it down to where there's a main culvert underneath the highway instead of coming out over the ledge and onto I-89. I noticed that water pouring off that ledge the morning of the very first press conference that was held at the EOC in Waterbury as I drove from here to there. And like the governor said, maybe understanding where that water came from. I mean, obviously enough rain is gonna cause water to flow and you're right, we're not gonna move the interstate and we're probably not gonna move the ledge. And that sort of, while that closed the road, which is rare for the interstate, those types of damages along the edge of the road that sometimes undermine guardrail posts are not that uncommon around the state of Vermont during summer storms. I think that our focus on them now is acute because of the totality of the storm damage. But that clearly was a mess and I also saw pictures where there were what looked to be, in some cases, almost basketball-sized rocks that had come down as well as standing water. So that was why it was closed. And of the 143 roads that I think I mentioned that have reopened since the start of this, many of them were fully inundated. And Mother Nature floods them and then Mother Nature lets that water recede and we're often left with what was done to them. So we're not gonna move the road, we're not gonna move the rail trail, but we've heard this before, especially New England, we developed our communities along river for power, for transportation. That's where roads were built, that's where railroads were built and times have changed. And so now we have to deal with the consequences of this weather. Governor, I wanna ask you about the issues with 211. The United Ways of Vermont put out a statement yesterday evening saying that 10 days before the disaster, 211 cut back hours and decreased staffing due to a lack of funding. Roughly 90% of 211's budget comes from state contracts and that funding has not increased for the past five years. Do you have a response to their statement there? I think what I said before still holds true. We didn't know that they were being inundated. They didn't communicate that with us. Had we known they were inundated and that they couldn't answer the calls, we would have sent in help earlier. So that was key, the communication piece. If they told us, we would have helped and been able to bring in some resources to get through this emergency period. So I think if you look back today or yesterday, now I think they had, I heard on the briefing this morning, they had 62 calls total for the day, that they can handle. During the extreme emergency, obviously they were inundated and overwhelmed, but that's when they need to call us for help so that we can help out during those emergency situations. We can't be ready, we have to have a plan for when that happens and be able to act on that plan. And thus conversations we'll probably have with them in the legislative session to determine what is their plan when you can't meet the needs. And then what do we do to supplement that, to help get through those tough periods, because it's not an everyday thing. 62 calls in a day is something they should be able to handle. When we went through the pandemic, they were receiving 30, 40 calls a day, something like that. So we just need a plan to put together so that we can handle the emergencies when they come about. So you think that the funding that 2-1-1 is currently receiving and they're staffing, which was recently cut back, is adequate in the long term? Well again, that's what they have to present to us in the legislature to determine whether under normal circumstances do they have enough resources to handle the calls. And then how do they ramp up? Can they ramp up? Or do we have to search for a different mechanism? Are we going to have to do something different? Are we going to have to utilize a different platform rather than United Way? If United Way can't do it, we may have to look in a different direction. So the CEO of United Way, Morse Western Vermont, Elizabeth Gilman, did tell the House of Appropriations Committee in April regarding the funding situation, quote, it would dramatically limit our ability to support Vermont Emergency Management and the Agency of Human Services Emergency Management around times of disaster and emergency need. So that was said to the legislature back in April. I still maintain that everyone has to have a plan for an emergency. So if they were inundated, they weren't able to answer the calls, which we didn't know, then they should have contacted us to help them so that we can answer the calls and we could put resources in to make sure we're getting back to people. We can't help if we didn't know about it. But I think they did communicate that back in April. They said that would have happened. I mean, I'm talking about during this emergency, this emergency situation, when you find yourself in trouble and you're not answering the calls, you have to communicate that with us, with the SEOC, so that they know that there's a problem and then we can fix it or attempt to fix it. I'm not blaming them. I'm just saying, and I'm not saying that whether their resources were enough or not is almost immaterial at this point. It's that they need to tell us when they were in a situation that they couldn't work their way out of. We had no idea. But once we found out, we were able to send in resources and be able to help out. That's what we need. We just need to develop plans to make sure during those times, because you don't wanna staff up like there's going to be an emergency every single day, you're going to have to have a plan because there are many weeks and months where we don't have anything and that would be a waste of resources. So you think it's okay that they come back on staff in an hour? I'm saying that we need to develop a plan. They need to develop a plan during those times so that they can act on it and then answer the calls when there's an emergency. If they can't do it, if they have no means of doing that, we're going to have to contemplate how we work that through. Maybe United Way isn't the right entity to oversee 2-1-1. I don't know. That's something the legislature is going to have to consider. If they simply can't do it, then we're going to have to figure another way to accomplish that. But I'm saying you can't have, you can't be on emergency status 24-7-365. You have to have a means to ramp up during those emergencies. You mentioned that the state is going to kind of jumpstart some of its recovery efforts using ARPA funds. Can you or Doug maybe talk a little bit about sort of what that will look like? You know, what projects will receive ARPA and sort of how the money is going to move around? Well, again, we are going to continue to move forward with the plans that we already have for the ARPA money. And we're going to make sure that we focus on the areas where that money could be utilized in ways to address two things at once. Doug, is that something you want to respond to? So I think the important thing here is that we have a large portfolio of ARPA projects that are still moving forward, hundreds of millions of dollars of infrastructure-style projects, water sewer, broadband, housing. Those are all going to have to intersect with our flood recovery efforts. So we're not going to stop those things, but we need to make them work well together and make sense together. And in some cases, we'll be able to move a community forward even more by combining a flood recovery effort with those ARPA efforts. So I think that's the main thing we want to look for here is where are the opportunities to really move a community forward in the right path so that they'll be more resilient in the future so that they have the right amount of housing and so that we don't have to worry about this damage down the road. Now we can't prevent the possibility of flood damage. That's not something that really can ever be done, but we can harden and mitigate as much as possible. And like the governor said, give the river space, let the river do what it wants to do as much as possible. Keeping in mind, we have our historic pattern of development and we can only move so quickly around that historic pattern and we have to respect our historic buildings and downtowns. When rebuilding, I mean, do you envision like war going into some of these flood ravaged areas as opposed to like Southern Vermont? Like, do you see that communities might lose out or, yeah, lose out on ARPA funds? That might have been coming their way if not for the flood. I think that there are 83 communities where we have damage and we need to go in and understand how they are going to best rebuild. So they may have small amounts of damage where we can recover, repair, and there might not be that much mitigation or transformation necessary. Other communities might be on the other end of the spectrum where they're gonna need to transform quite a bit. And I think we reached a very good understanding with the legislature of the goals of the ARPA portfolio. I think Vermont did a great job of negotiating a really thoughtful package of ARPA investment that's gotten some national praise, actually. So we don't wanna just do a sharp left turn on that, right? We wanna see how consistent we can stay with that package. And then if we have to make adjustments, we wanna talk about those. But I don't think we wanna assume that we're gonna undermine or dramatically shift how we spend the ARPA state fiscal recovery money. Go to the phones, I think we've got two on the line. We'll start with Keith, the Rotten Herald. Hi. Yeah, so I saw an email from FEMA the other day. It made me think of this. They were hiring several positions to sort of address some of the flood recovery. But it made me wonder, overall, was our previous labor shortage impacting our recovery effort here in any way? Does anybody know that? Well, I think from my standpoint, I think that it will. It's going to, the duration is going to be longer, I think, in the recovery because we have a lot of skilled labor that is already committed in many, many different ways. And we have the ARPA dollars, the IAJA, the traditional infrastructure through V-trans and BGS and so forth. And we have a limited pool of those in the trades. And so I believe it will take a little longer to get through this recovery and do all the other things that we need to do as well. And it's something we've been highlighting for the last seven years, a lack of workforce, lack of specifically in the trades. And it's coming to roost at this point in time. And I think we're going to be seeing that more and more as time goes on. Would Mr. Roy happen to know if FEMA is having any trouble recruiting for those positions or is that filling up pretty? I don't know if the short-term nature of this really, I don't know if the same pressures apply, normal or not, makes any sense? Unfortunately, it's too early to say. The advertisements went out and they haven't closed. So we're waiting to see how many people are interested in the short-term, 120-day positions. Thank you. Online, sir. Thank you. If we can just convince the 400 and something FEMA, employees to stay in Vermont, that would be helpful. Thank you. Governor Ivan. Let me just do one, I think we have one more on the phone on the back of the room. Tim McQuiston, Vermont Business Magazine. Hi, Governor, you know, the electric utilities that had really tough time last winter with their storms and a whole different manner of storms, is this going to set back the progress trying to be made on the transmission and that sort of thing because all this money and effort is going into this storm mitigation? I don't believe so, Tim, different buckets of money, different skills, different labor force and that pretty specialized in that area. So I don't believe that will impact the upgrades of any of the infrastructure in that regard. Does it feel like it's just one thing after another now? It does these days, yes, very much so. All right, thanks, Governor. Look. Maybe a couple more. This is a completely non-flight question. Has the health department or the agency of education decided on whether COVID-19 vaccinations will be on the required schedule for school children? I don't believe so, but that is a question. I think it was Dr. Levine is on that panel, I believe. I don't think I can answer that today, but I can get the answer or get Dr. Levine to call you. Your view, what do you think the relationship will be like in terms of the state and individual municipalities, in terms of the mitigation and rebuilding conversation, just how much power will municipalities have to come to say, this is how our area needs to rebuild? What will that relationship look like? Yeah, we wanna work hand-in-hand with the communities and that's what this administration, what I've been talking about for quite some time, especially those rural communities that have been long forgotten and that's why we wanted to spread out the ARPA money geographically across the state so that it's not just the northwest part of the state that we focus on. It's the other 11, 12 counties that need our help desperately. So we need to have conversations with them. We are having conversations with them. We've been out on our ARPA tour for the last year. So now we have to go back and see if that's still the same, whether they wanna focus on the same, they have the same vision and we'll work hand-in-hand with them so that we all win because they're vital to our revitalization efforts throughout Vermont. The revitalization efforts of Vermont are really integrated with the communities, rural communities in particular. Do you think there's enough to go around for them all to win? I believe it's never enough, but it's a great start. Yes. The labor force and the flood recovery kind of point at a joint hearing between the House and Senate Economic Development committees the week before last, Senator Keisha Romhenstahl kind of floated the idea of a works progress administration type civilian conservation core, and specifically pulling tech students out of the classroom and having them out in the field doing work to rebuild. I wonder what you make of that idea. I have to learn more about that, obviously, and then we can do to engage those in the tech in that field would be advantageous to us. Maybe getting the mouse sooner is good on, you know, with boots on the ground. I think you learn a lot in that regard. It could be an opportunity, but it won't be near enough. I mean, our labor shortage is severe and a lot of it is due to the lack of the number of people in Vermont. So maybe a great idea, but it doesn't come anywhere near to satisfying the need that we have. I just have a follow-up. Maybe it's for Commissioner Morrison about rubbish removal. It's my life. As you know, you mentioned like mobile home parks. I'm just thinking of the one in Berlin, right? It's probably one of them at least is privately owned. In that case, who's responsible, you know, for hauling away the trash? Is that the town or is that the park owner? With great delight, I'm going to tell you that this is the governor's bellywick, not mine. Well, you can certainly supplement part of this. But the bottom line, let's get to the bottom line first. For those mobile homes that are no longer usable or dilapidated can no longer be utilized and need to be deconstructed. We are putting together a plan that will be implemented very soon. There will be no costs to the owner. So regardless of what happens, no cost to the owner to take care of these homes in the mobile home parks at this point. So it's our understanding that the debris will be paid for by FEMA if, because it's debris that is from the flood itself. But it'll have to be deconstructed, put out in the right way, and then we'll have to take it away from there. But they have to be deconstructed first and taken apart and recycled. The materials that can be recycled will be recycled as a result, much like we did during Irene. So the deconstructing and the disposal of the possessions and of the home will be covered by FEMA. Can you use that? No, it won't be all, the debris itself will be covered by FEMA, but not the deconstruction. But we have resources that we're going to tap into. We'll talk a little bit more about it next week that we're going to utilize so that there is no cost to the owner, at least from that respect. And will that potentially cover their rehousing or finding new shelter costs associated? That's another conversation in another area. So I'm going to stay in this lane for right now, and we'll have those conversations further. But there is some opportunity, I don't know if we're ready to talk about that or not, but there are some temporary shelters coming that are mobile home related, but we can't put them back in the same place because it's in a floodway. So we are actively pursuing other opportunities to place these so that we can rehouse people. Do you want to add anything to that at this point? Thank you, Governor. We're awaiting the request from the state for direct housing. There are a number of different means that we use for that. First, we look for multifamily units to be able to either lease or if they've been damaged, prepared to place residents. We also have a program for direct lease. So if there are locations that are available for us to lease, we can lease those. And then the last course, everybody knows the FEMA trailers. And so those are an option as well. Each of them really is tied to the individual themselves. Typically, we'll start with a very large population relative to how many people are interested in FEMA assisting them to find housing solutions. But along the way, many people find housing solutions on their own. And so at the end of the day, what you end up with is as much small as set of individuals who will need your assistance. Those people who are already receiving rental assistance, if they've got a place to stay, they can utilize those funds for up to 18 months, which is the same for the direct housing mission from FEMA as well. It's a short-term process while they find a permanent living solution. Thank you. Just a few weeks before the flood, there was a massive pink pig that was blown up on Cherstree in Burlington. And it was a PR stunt by Beeper. They wanted to sort of call attention to the greed of big oil. And they launched a summer campaign called Make Big Oil Pay. And their pitch was, let's find a way to make the companies that are responsible for the fossil fuel emissions that they knew were gonna be a problem for the climate that they sold anyway. Let's make them pay for Vermont's damage from climate-fueled storms. 25 years, $2.5 billion climate superplunk of some kind. They're out there pushing that to voters right now. They're out there telling voters that we need to do this in Vermont and they're gonna be pushing lawmakers in the next session to try to find a way to do that. Does do any of these storms and the damage that you've witnessed make you think that maybe something along those lines, if not exactly that, something in the direction of getting Vermont access to some additional funding beyond just the federal government, is a wide move or possible. Well, again, I think this is something the Attorney General should take a look at. Probably will take a look at. It's in her bailiwick. I tend to want to look forward. We put a lot of effort into, I believe climate change is real. I believe that we should be moving to another, transitioning away from fossil fuels, carbon emitting fuels and move to this new electric society. But it's gonna take some time. But we've started and I think it's in the transportation sector, but it'll also be in every other sector as well. So we'll focus our efforts on doing just that and we'll let the Attorney Generals of the world figure out whether we should be involved in a lawsuit or not. That's a big- The position you're describing is gonna take billions and billions of dollars. Even if you just end the repair of the infrastructure of the state that it may endure over the next decade, multiple decades, it's gonna take billions and billions of dollars. What do you think about the general premise that we're gonna need some help funding-wise? Well, again, I think taking on big oil by the Attorney General and many Attorney Generals is going to be a daunting effort as well. Probably a long-term effort. I don't think it's instantaneous. I'm not sure that they're going to be able to have help for us in the immediate future, but maybe sometime along down the road when most of us are out of office. We'll see. Call out to Kevin's earlier questions. It's gonna be hard to mitigate a lot of these areas near rivers, like the rail trail, like the railroad. Secretary Flynn, I know you mentioned a lot of the bridge infrastructure did hold up since Irene, because a lot of the things that you guys did just, this might be a better question for you, but just what pieces of infrastructure, what areas are you maybe excited about or you think can benefit the most from these mitigation efforts? Specifically. Well, you mentioned bridges, and clearly that was an area that we were fortunate to not see as much damage this time as last. I think at one time the maximum number we had was four, and during Irene it was 34. I will say too, when I was reading the data, I think I said something like impacted culverts somewhere like 876 on my talking points. Every single culvert or box structure that we've replaced, we've attempted to replace it bigger, even during this emergency response. That's not always possible because you've got to match the availability of material with the demand to fix what you're trying to get going. But every single place we could, we've upsized right then and there. So that's an example, I think, of how we look at things differently than might have been looked at before Irene. And then with respect to the structures, I can tell you that while I don't have the size of the pipe that is under Route 116 by Dalpawne Dam in Middlebury, I can tell you that that is going to go to a 12 by 15 foot rectangle, 125 feet long. It is massive in size, significantly larger than what was there. So much so that we're actually working with our neighbors in New York State DOT to access some of those pieces expeditiously, which we will replace. So it's thinking like that. We've also worked with DEC. We've worked with the river's engineers ever, they did before Irene, but they've worked much closer together since Irene. As I think I mentioned in a previous press conference to take a look at hydrology, the governor mentioned hydrology before. Can we design a bridge fix that doesn't have a pier in the middle of the stream? Like that might have been engineered 80 or 100 years ago when it was first built, but it just takes a different type of engineering. And so those accomplishments go on daily. But they just are never highlighted unless there's an event like this that someone like me points to one of them and says there's an example. But the engineers are looking at this every single day as they build things. Thank you all.