 So good afternoon. We are as a city and county partner agencies joining you all this afternoon to just reassure our public as Hurricane Florence fast approaches. The city of Columbia has been working in partnership with South Carolina, EMD and our county officials for several days. We are ready and prepared. But as we've done in years past when we unfortunately have based similar weather events, we've learned that one of the most important things we can do as a city for our community is to stay current with information. And so today we just wanted to invite our partner agencies to join us and sharing some information as we know it right now. We'll continue to do this on a fairly regular basis so that the public remains informed. We'll start with some opening comments from Mayor Steve Benjamin, who you've probably seen on the Weather Channel and other outlets. He's just coming from an interview as a matter of fact and we'll probably be doing a lot of that in the upcoming days. So we'll go down the list of some information sharing from him and then some departmental updates to include our pertinent city departments as well as some information from Sheriff Leon Lott and some other partner agencies. And then I'll come back up and help you with any questions and answers. Mayor Benjamin. Thank you Teresa. I did just leave an interview with the Weather Channel and I tell them everyone loves the Weather Channel. We just don't like when you're in our city because it usually means that there's nothing good happening. I know we've all been closely paying attention to the governor's reports and want to encourage everyone within the sound of our voice if the governor has indicated the importance of you evacuating wherever you are to please heed his warning. We are hosting our citizens here from all across the state and in Columbia and in Richland County. Richland 2 has been a fantastic host at Ridgeview High School. I had a chance to visit them last night. You're welcome here and we will treat you just as friends and family. Evacuate if the governor says evacuate. For our citizens here in the Midlands we recognize the importance of sharing locally relevant and pertinent information not just from the city but all of our sister agencies and our friends and we of course have representatives of the business community here with us from Congressman Clyburn's office and before we're done we're going to make sure we go through so you all know the relevant agencies that are here if you have specific questions that you might be able to ask of what our different partners the county school district and others are doing feel free to do so. I will say that staunting to see the title storm of a lifetime under Hurricane Florence and we want to make sure that each of our citizens all of our citizens know that we are working together we're preparing for any and every eventuality we learned a great deal the experience of 2015 working together the value of experience is obviously hopefully you take something away from it that experience can be a painful teacher saying over 500 roads washed out dozens of dams $12 billion worth of damage to our state and losing 19 precious lives is a lesson that you got to learn from if you don't learn from then we'd all be derelict in our duties we've learned so much more about being prepared and I'm so encouraged by the work I've seen from our city staff from Wilson and her entire team a sheriff is already always on the ball the partnership and the focus on on what it means to be public servants by our school districts making sure that not only are we educating but we're making sure that the entirety of our children is being taken care of as we feed our babies over these days while schools out and working closely with our leaders at the at the county there's so much more that needs to be done however I don't want people to be fooled by this beautiful weather we have outside this is the calm before the storm this is the calm before the storm over the next several days we will see rainfall if all the forecasts are true unlike anything we've ever seen before and we've got to make sure that we're preparing for that right now as you prepare to keep our community safe let's make sure we don't put ourselves in unnecessary danger and detract from our professional law enforcement and emergency responders doing the work that they need to do let's not do that let's make sure that we're preparing our families to potentially shelter in place and let's make sure again that we keep at heart with the means to be Colombia strong with the means to be South Carolina strong that we're taking care of our sick and shedding neighbors that we're looking after some of our friends that may be a bit more fragile by doing this together we'll weather the storm just as we did in 2015 and we'll come out even stronger than we were going in so I want to thank our friends in the media for being here when encourage people to follow the city of Colombia on on social media at see the Columbia both on Twitter and Instagram for our Facebook page monitor our website Columbia SC net obviously if you have any emergencies are called 9-1-1 if you do not have emergencies we have a customer Caroline 803-545-3300 stay in touch the world is a lot different now we receive all of our information from different sources let's share good information empowering information edifying information that helps us all get through this very difficult time together and thank you I want to think of course on the record all of our friends in the media for for your diligent coverage of this incredible storm I want to step aside and I think we're going to go into departmental updates I'm not sure if you want to MC Ms. Wilson or just ask the great chief police over good afternoon quick update from Columbia Police Department I think the I hope the important take away for the public when we meet such as this is reassurance that we are prepared working as a team ready to respond immediately to protect life and property our operational readiness is high we have pre-staged equipment high water equipment and materials at our five different regions we pre-staged barricades in areas we know are flood prone where we have water that rises quickly our officers are prepared to close roads immediately when we see some of the significant rainfall that were expected we will have teams with the high water vehicles for rescue purposes along with the Sheriff's Department and the fire department and with chainsaws if we need to clear roadways we want to keep roadways clear quickly so we can operate emergency equipment and if we need to get medical help to somebody or medical transport I think what you will see like you have learned to see with us is seamless public safety operations between the City Police Department the County Sheriff's Department and our Fire Department that's what will be second to none we we know that there are no boundaries and territories and in times of crisis and quite frankly with us it's an everyday operational posture and that's our philosophy and I think it's it's paid dividends it's you know we will be the eyes and ears during the storm we will be prepared to respond in a moment's notice and again you know our goal is to save lives and protect life and property and we will be staffed up and prepared to do so there has been mentions mentioned of a curfew and so I'll address it right now there's been no decisions those decisions on the curfews would would come from input from myself and the Sheriff and our elected officials and the city manager would make the appropriate call on that if necessary thank you as the mayor said we've learned a lot in the past three years and I think we're better prepared now than we've ever been what you will see is public safety teams working together Fire Department Police Department Sheriff's Department we have strike teams that are ready to go out these teams are equipped to handle any type of emergency we've got boats we've got four-wheelers we've got trucks we've got chainsaws we've got any anything that we need to go and rescue people that's our first priority is to make sure people are safe so we're prepared to do that the next is protect property we're not gonna allow bad guys to get out here and rob and steal and take advantage of this disaster so there's zero tolerance for that this is a state of emergency so also the county's declared emergency so there's laws that are in effect now that enhances those penalties if we catch someone out there so you know we just want people to understand that law enforcement's out there in full force we've got an army when you put all of our agencies together we've got an army to go out there and protect Richland County in the city of Columbia and we're gonna do that so you'll see us together as a team we're ready whatever happens with Florence we're ready and prepared to address it I'm not gonna repeat everything that was said thank the sheriff and the chief said said at all as far as us working together you know it's always a great opportunity we don't like these opportunities at this point but it's always a great opportunity to work with my two partners in crime they in crime I'm just in fire but just want to emphasize you know this is a storm that's coming up and we just want to encourage the folks out there to be safe you know that could be trees trees toppling over they'll be power lines down you may lose power at your homes just make sure that when you if you see a down power line don't go near it just treat it as lab if you have a tree that toppled on your house get out if you can and make sure you call us down now one one just remember when we got flood waters always remember to turn around don't drown because you don't know how deep that war is and we just encouraging people to just to stay home you know and stay off the road because one thing about it if we get wins and it says about 50 miles per hour you probably won't it's probably some delayed in response because we won't be out there anything over 50 miles per hour we're gonna wait until it come down so just just be safe out then if you do have to use if you do lose power in your home always remember if you're gonna use counters we don't advocate that you use we want to make sure you get a flashlight but if you get to use counters please do not leave unattended and I know that there is always talk about using generators you know if you use a generator especially portable generators remember do not use them on the inside do not even use inside of a garage if you have to refuel and wait until they cool down you know so just make sure you know those safety caution and what we're trying to do is pump out safety information as much as we can so we're using all our social media outlets to pump out safety safety concern and the one thing that we're using now it's called next door neighbor and we've been able to reach about 12,000 people using next door neighbor so if you can download that app but also even reverse 911 if we have to pump information out that we would do so so you know this is not even that I look forward to but I know it's something we have to deal with so we're gonna do everything we can to keep the public safe good afternoon I'm Clint Shealy assistant city manager for Columbia water we'll let our citizens and customers know that we've been monitoring this this storm very closely anticipating both an intense and in a long duration rainfall event and also the winds that may be coming from a water system perspective and a water supply perspective we have been going through our emergency operation procedures and preparing at our treatment plants we've topped off in our critical pumping stations we've topped off our generators with fuel and exercise that equipment we have an ample supply of treatment chemicals and supplies we have staffing plans in place in case our employees would need to stay for extended durations so we're ready for that we'll be topping off our storage tanks in our distribution system and be ready in the event that that we may have something that would impact our our distribution piping network many of you may be asking questions about our our canal our water source for half of our our treatment and water distribution system we have been running computer simulations of the hydrology of the canal system looking at anticipated precipitation levels and what that might mean for water levels coming into our canal and also river levels that feed our canal system we are managing the inflow and the outflow into that canal system in a different way than we were in 2015 we have a temporary solution from the flooding that occurred in 2015 and the breach of our canal but it is a very robust temporary solution so we feel confident in that solution but should should something tragic happen and we have another breach we also have emergency pumps both in place and on the way piping and equipment necessary to repair that breach and to supply water to our treatment plant in the event that a breach did occur so we feel like we're prepared there on a wastewater system we're managing our collection system to make sure that that we minimize any disruption in service and any overflows of sanitary sewer that might happen during a heavy rainfall event so we're doing that we've got emergency pumping equipment ready and on standby if needed and so we're operating that system in a way to be ready for for what is coming for us stormwater improvements we've been investing heavily in our stormwater infrastructure we've made a key tie-in there on Bull Street near Wilder Street we think that tie-in that happened this week is going to help reduce possibly some flash flooding that may occur in the Cotton Town neighborhood we've also are near incompletion of some some stormwater detention improvements at MLK Park that may reduce some of the localized flooding in that area should we have high-intensity rainfall I just want to again assure our customers our team is working very very hard to ensure that that we're as prepared as we possibly can be and that we don't have any interruption in in service to our customers if you do if you're a water customer a wastewater customer of the city of Columbia if you do have an interruption in service or if you have any non-emergency storm related questions just as the mayor said please call our customer care hotline at 803-545-3300 that is manned 24 hours a day seven days a week and we'll be happy to answer any questions and take your your issues as everybody knows it sounds like everybody's preparing and public works has also been preparing over the last few days we've looked at our stormwater system we know that we need to clean some storm drains so we've cleaned our storm drainage system as much as we could we've checked our creeks we've checked our bridges to make sure that there are no obstructions within these pipes so if there is a rainfall that we can handle somewhat of a downpour to limited at a limited time we've also are asking people to suspend putting yard trash on the street for a while yard trash and a heavy rain can actually worse into the storm drains and actually cause some local flooding with that our solid waste crews are continuing to work I believe the city is actually shut down tomorrow but our solid waste crews on Friday will be picking up their normal schedules and if they finish their Friday collection route on their trash they will be going and looking at areas in the city to make sure that if any piles are out there that we feel could cause flooding that we will address those our forestry division along with our street division also has been working and making sure our chain saws are ready and making sure the that our employees would just held a chain saw safety class a few minutes ago just to make sure that everybody was aware our traffic engineering division has built controllers for all the areas that flooded during the 2015 flood so they can throw a controller in and bring the traffic lights back up in a quicker manner so we don't have to put four-way stops but we also want to make sure our crews are safe and I believe like the fire chief said we want to make sure everybody stays safe so our crews are going to stay safe by if it gets too windy we are going to stay in and not respond as quick but we also want to remind citizens and I don't think we can say this enough if it's a limb in the road or a tree in the road there could be a line in there and that line could be energized we do not want somebody grabbing on to that tree and getting electrocuted let that to the professionals call the 5 4 5 3 300 number and let our crews respond so they know what to look for if those trees are down if there's a live wire in it we're going to barricade the street off and notify the police and fire department that that streets blocked off but we also want to make sure we don't drive through standing water we don't know what's in the water we do not know how fast the water is moving in three feet of water I believe will move a car and actually float a car so we want to make sure that we do that so our crews are ready to respond they have been trained for this and in the time of need we will be there thank you a good afternoon I'm Baron Davis superintendent original school district 2 as many of you know we are under the order of the governor to keep schools closed and to further notice and so as we're anticipating the release of that order we'll continue with many of the agendas that we have set in our district one we're serving as a shelter here in richland school district 2 at Ridgeview high school there's plenty space so those of you who are traveling and come into Richland County to Columbia you can seek shelter at Ridgeview high school as a final count of today or the last count of the day I think we had roughly about 80 people who have already seek shelter at that location we've also been serving lunch for our students at two locations in the district at Dent middle school and also at Ridgeview high school and so today was the first day of our lunch operation we will continue that operations to tomorrow that time will be from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. we're also providing lunch to those individuals with our partners my food service partners that are at the shelter also receiving breakfast as long and lunch as well we'll continue to monitor the system throughout the weekend along with the city and the county in preparations for decisions that need to be made following Monday and Tuesday please follow our social media sites at Richland to our website at Richland to org as well as you can follow us on Facebook Twitter and Instagram at Richland to for updated and more information John into a good afternoon we at the Comet we are prepared to work with each of the counties that we serve both Richland Lexington counties as well as the city of Columbia to be able to provide transportation for evacuees or whatever transportation needs that need to occur we are also going to be suspending service starting today at 5 30 all of our trips that are on the road will complete its last round trips starting at 5 30 so that we can have our vehicles back in the garage by approximately 8 o'clock we will have a lifeline type of dialer at service for any of those passengers that we've missed so we can ensure that they're back to safety we will be monitoring and working collaboratively with our local governments so that once we're able to safely resume service will be prepared to do so and I would encourage our passengers to contact us at 803-255-7113 which is our interruption service hotline where they can get up to minute information on our service levels as well as visit us at catch the comment org or social media which is Facebook Twitter and Instagram 7 1 1 8 I'm sorry 803-255-7118 good afternoon I'm Craig witherspoon superintendent Richland County School District 1 and similar to what Dr. Davis had said we have been closed since Tuesday on the governor's order but since that time we've continued to serve meals for our students and over the last two days we've served close to a thousand meals at various sites across the city and I want to say certainly thank you to our administrators teachers that have helped in that effort also we stand ready certainly with the sheriff's department with the city of Columbia on the the backside of this event just in case there are additional shelters that are needed depending on flooding depending on electricity power and those things we stay in constant contact certainly with the sheriff's department and with the city as we did in 15 and we will continue to do at this point as well and I would like to say certainly to our parents and our students during this time of course be safe but if there are some lessons and some instruction and things that can go on I know our teachers have been online with students and parents and can learning never stops but but we certainly want you to be safe in the meantime and again we stand ready to work very collaboratively with everyone that's that's a part of this as a part of the safety team here in Columbia and here in Richland County. Hi I'm Jim Jackson from Richland County Council and my presence here is to represent the lockstep effort that Richland County Council is having with City Council and to let everyone out there know that just today the just yesterday the Sheriff County Council declared a state of emergency so that access will be made available throughout this county and you can be reassured that we're working arm in arm. Also another thing that's happened is that in addition to being able to call 911 you will now be able to text 911 in addition to making that phone call while weather permits that they'll be able to get to you. We are not only just one Columbia we're one Richland County and that's very important because everyone needs to know that we are one community and it doesn't matter what part of Richland County you live in or what part of the city you live in you are just as important to everyone else. So keep that in mind don't hesitate to reach out and stay in touch with the website to make sure that you are aware of all of the changes because one of the things that we've noticed is that this storm is constantly changing but as it changes and adjusts we're doing the same thing as a city and as a county working together. Thank you very much. Obviously Congressman Clyburn's office is here and it's declined that Dalton Tresman here representing the congressman along with some of our representatives from Pamela Health have been present in all of our emergency briefings and actively participating. Have our members of city council here with us. I'm Mayor Pro Tem, Tamika Devine, Councilman Daniel Rickerman, Councilman Howard Duvall and Councilman Sam Davis all here with us. We have the leaders from our business community here, Carl Blackstone, the chairman, the president CEO of our Columbia Chamber of Commerce and Matt Kennell, the CEO and president of our city center partnership as well. Of course, Monica Elkins-Johnson, Richland School District 2 also here with us as well. And I think I've gotten just about everyone. Of course, our dear friend Jamie Devine who I see is dressed just like the superintendent today and matching outfits and fantastic. Rich and the one gear which apparently we have not yet invested in at the city of Columbia as well. But it's important that we're all here. We're working together. We are interfacing with all of our nonprofit partners as well from Columbia Cares, the United Way, the Central Carolina Community Foundation and to face in closely with the University of South Carolina. We're working together in the interests of the entire community and we will continue to do so. We're going to prepare for any eventuality and we're going to hope and pray for the for the very best. Bring Teresa back up and any questions that you all have. As you can tell from the presentations, we have some incredible subject matter experts here and maybe to answer some of your specific questions. And I'm proud of the work as I told them yesterday, incredibly proud of the work that our team is doing working together. Firstly, my colleagues, any of you want to speak as well? Are we good? Okay. Questions? Yes, ma'am. Mr. Mayor, I did want to address the fact that the city offices will be closed tomorrow just out of an abundance of caution. City offices will be closed. That really doesn't mean much for the city of Columbia. 90% of our staff are essential. We will be working and you will see that. But again, don't be fooled by these bright, sunny days and we anticipate some changing over the course of the day tomorrow. But again, out of abundance of caution for some of our staff who you know, maybe don't have to be on the ground, which is not many, but for those will close city offices and also to be in lot step with state agencies and the work that really has to be done preparing for the weekend. So that is the reality of the situation. It's the best decision. I believe the county is also doing that as well as far as closing county offices. I wanted to acknowledge our emergency management director who likes to be in the background. Harry Tinsley, wave your hand, Harry. Harry is really the glue that holds these type incidents together for us as far as the staff that you heard speak to you, our public safety officials and others, but there is an abundance of staff behind the scenes from finance to public and media relations that make all of this work and certainly are my experts and I appreciate them more than I could ever say. Any questions? Please make sure you remember the five four five thirty three hundred number that's been mentioned for non emergencies and pertinent information every day. The city's website at Columbia SC.net will be updated with an incident response brief, which will have lots of the information in it that we've talked about. Another partner, Mayor Benjamin, would be SCENG and so all of their information about outages will will be posting that widely as well. Thank you, Chris. Great question. We've been getting that a lot. I think one of the one of the key things is prior to the flood of two thousand and fifteen, we in our headgate inlet to the to the canal. We we the the great flow that came from the flooding brought with it a lot of debris and that kept us from closing completely and choking off the flow coming into the canal. We have eleven of the twelve head gates are closed now with the bulkhead. So we're operating one and we're actually closing that gate this afternoon to minimize any flow that might come in. So we're from a control of flow into the canal. We're in a much better position. We also again we've got a temporary solution in place to hydroelectric facility is not operating. We've got this rock dam in place. But that dam was designed very quickly but very robustly structurally to serve as an over topping spillway to give us excess capacity to let water flow out of the canal. Should we have a large amount coming in the earth and embankment was not designed for over topping. This rock dam is designed for over topping and it was constructed a lower elevation. So that is an extra relief point. So those two are the probably the primary things that are in place for the canal system itself. The other primary component we put in a bypass emergency pumping system from the river in response to the canal breach in 2015. We learn from that experience that equipment is now staged and ready to be deployed. Should we in the unlikely event that we would need to do that. I believe in 2015 the rain came in a very good clip. You know this will be bands of rain. So if we can have some time for some of our roads to drain off into the creeks and then down to the river it gives us a better time to recover. So it's going to depend on how much how fast the rains do come and at what intensity they come. I know the Chief Holbrook mentioned that we pre staged barricades at certain locations. That's something we learned from 2015. We never did that before. So we know the hotspots in the city of Columbia. So the barricades are there so we can shut the roads down a little bit quicker. But we've also learned about the traffic controllers that if they get flooded out we've already pre built them so we can get the intersections back up. You know a lot of times flash flooding happens and then 45 minutes or an hour later it's gone. So that's what we're prepared for. Yes most of the DHEC apparently issued in order to lower most of the dams in. We've actually reached out to Lake Catherine. They're lowering their dam down two feet. Several other dams I believe Southeast Park in the city have been lowered also. But a lot of the dams in Richland County have been lowered as a result of that. Many of you may also remember that just over a year ago city council but unanimously to fund a very first storm water bond in the city to address the top 20 flooding locations in the city voted unanimously again I might add nearly one hundred million dollars. A couple of those projects are currently under construction and would seek to mitigate some of the flooding that Clint mentioned MLK Park and I believe Wallace Street as well currently under construction. Nine more are currently in design. So we're seeing some significant long term improvements on the way for the for the for the city and I'm proud of the work that staff is doing there. Other questions. Thank you.