 All right, so welcome everybody our special guest today is Amherst fire chief and emergency management director Tim Nelson Welcome. Hey, how you doing? He's joining myself Brianna and your town manager Paul Bachman So before we launch into questions, I just want to remind everybody this is being recorded and I'm going to give an opportunity for Paul to give you any updates he has sure. Thanks Brianna So this is on Monday, the new Board of Health regulation That requires the wearing of masks in the downtown area, basically from Lincoln Ave to Triangle Street to College Street North Hampton Road Went into effect and we've received a lot of people saying, well, how are you going to enforce it? What's it going to do? And it's Really an educational thing. We really want people to start wearing masks if they aren't to educate them that they should to create a culture of compliance. We are not going to be running around giving tickets to people if they're not wearing masks. That's not we know that that's not effective. And we've talked with the university a lot about the techniques that they've used in the past. And we'll be utilizing an employing a number of people who will be out and about with someone doesn't have a mask offering to people. We're not giving them a mask educating them saying, Oh, this is a place where you have to have a mask on and supporting businesses as they, you know, if they have any issues. So, and we're going to be sort of following the university's walk this way program which has been very successful over the years and helping to leverage some of their student ambassadors basically to work in the area. And that's what's coming to us. And we think that will be up and running by a time to classes resume, which is around August 24. I know that the we've already started to interview people for those those positions. So that's, that's the big thing coming, coming up other than, you know, Tim will talk about this we had a pretty crazy storm on Tuesday that where he is flying around the town trying to put out literally put out a million fires. So, just to follow up on some of the content that Paul just shared regarding the mask order you can find the complete language of the order as well as the map on both our homepage Amherst and may go as well as our coven information page which is Amherst coven 19.org. So if you want to look further into that you can find it at both of those places. So, I guess we're going to launch into some questions because we as Paul mentioned we had a little bit of a crazy weather spurt in the last few days. Just a little, you know, a little bit. So, some questions we have around that is, you know, Tim we had a tornado call on Sunday and then a storm. How do you and your team prepare for this when do you start preparing for weather type events like this. Well, as you know I'm a bit of a weather geek, you know, I'm a pilot so I'm a weather geek. You know, the prediction for some Sunday, you know, that there'd be some pretty tough weather came two or three days prior to the event. So we'll start to start to look at that and just kind of kind of, you know, one of the things we'll do is you see how our staff for that day and just making sure that our equipment is all set to go. And that our staff is aware of what we go on. And then on Sunday we were like everyone else, we were watching the weather. And as it began to build up, we saw that there were more tornadoes. It went from a tornado watch to a tornado war. And it was which meant meant that either someone saw saw it or radar showed show that there was some rotation station going on within a thunderstorm. And I was almost watching it. And thing is, you can you can see on on the track that the storms were going to go we're going from south or western mask and more more these on a track direct direct for the happened in Amherst. And the lucky lucky thing for us is that the tornado went through, I think that's Sandisfield plan plan heard and we've tall tall and as it came came up through the deals it began to lose some some some some good strength so we still had a thunderstorm. We still still had some winds and rain, but the but the tornado. But it still came on a track straight straight straight straight through, but we, I, as you know, I got very good touch with you and we put out that blast blast alert for folks to heed the warnings a take shells shelter and that and that type of thing. And that's, and that's, that's our standard. We run, you know, things, things like, like this, which leads leads leads me to go to putting in a plug for folks folks to sign sign sign sign sign up for our words. It's easy as just go go go to the web website why don't why don't you explain explain it since you're so good at my specialty. Yeah, so we've, we've actually we got a big uptick in subscriptions after Sunday. So that's always a good thing. You can easily text join Amherst the words join Amherst to 30890 and that'll automatically put that cell phone on our alerts. Alternatively, if you visit our preparedness page Amherst m a dot gov slash prepare, we have the sign ups there as well, as well as preparedness information. And from if you sign up online you can create an account you can set up language, your own language choice I think we've got almost 60 to 65 different languages you can choose to receive those calls and alerts. And they go out instantaneously. It's a really good system. So we encourage you if you're not already signed up to do so and maybe ask your neighbors or friends and family to do the same. So I just want to take a quick chance to remind folks who are in attendance that you can use the q amp a function to pop your questions into the room, or you can raise your hand from zoom or star nine from a phone we'd love to hear from you live or through q amp a. And with that said we have a question from Abby. Where are we in developing regulations that limit gathering sizes outdoor and indoor. This is urgent. Last week six students tested positive they live off campus did contact tracing work. This cluster illustrates the urgent need for the town to develop regulations that limit the size of gatherings what is the status of forming these regulations. It's a timely question because that is on the agenda for the town council on Monday night. Setting regulations for limiting gathering is fairly, especially on private property becomes more complex because it applies to everyone at all times. It's very incredibly difficult to enforce so if someone is having a birthday party for their five year old that would come into play as well as someone, you know, doing whatever event that they might be having so we're trying to monitor if there's 10 people in a house or whatever the number that the council says is wants to do is a big challenge for the police department and also, you know, there's a definite sort of constitutional privacy issue in terms of what people are doing on their private property, etc. So right now, if there if there people are outside and we can observe things that that's one thing, our bigger fear quite frankly is in it when people are inside and that's where I, our health director fears the greatest risk for spread of disease and doing managing that on private property is just a is a big issue but this is a conversation that the council wants to have they've heard from the constituents that that's a major concern for many of our residents and that will be a topic for discussion on Monday so I encourage you Abbie to join into that meeting at 630. And, and all those meetings will be broadcast on Channel 17 via Amherst Media's live stream and from the zoom link right in the calendar posting itself so if you need any help accessing that please let us know. So we have another question here with with coming close to the start of school have you seen an up to uptick in calls for services chief. Yeah, we have but I don't you know it's I don't think you can say that it's because you know students students are making making their way back. I think it's I think people are becoming more active here, here, here, here folks are beginning to get out a little more. So between, I think between that and the fact that some, you know, some of the students are coming back, and all and all the folks that work for services that support support the schools. And we can see enough and up, and up, and up, and up, slope but short. I mean we were down when they went when the whole pan pan down and pretty much took took its hole. We are calls, probably went down about 440% so and we're and but now we're beginning to see a little as I said a little bit of an up and up, they can that's just a fun function as said, a folks be getting to come back to town beginning to get little more active. Great, thank you. So another thing, you know, about our fire department and your team is that they're known for all of their extra engagement and outreach beyond your regular, you know, everyday responsibilities. So are there, are you guys thinking of ways that you can continue this in this new landscape of not being able to have events in person? It's different. It's stuff, we have a very robust school, a prevention program. And depending on how schools will roll out, that is going to have an effect on it. And it's been success over, my God, 20, 25, five years, years now. As you know, I started out in the whole, you know, fire. And, you know, we, we want our, we wanted our program to be, to be like, you know, that's the thing. We are the benchmark for the state. Along with that, everybody loves, loves, loves our open house. That comes at the beginning, at the beginning of fire prevention weekend, October, October, this week from the end, eventually, to October 4th through the 10th. At times, I think folks come for the donuts, but that's, that's okay. Yeah, we'll see. Yeah, but we got to get you in the door. Okay. So, so, so one of, one of the things that we're kicking around now is to do it for, for virtually, you know, we're kind of, kind of kicking around, around my idea so that we can, we can still have some type of out, out, out outreach and, you know, and, and share, share some time and share some good information with folks. It just won't be added, you know, face, face to face. You know, so that's, so that's wonderful. Stay tuned. And we'll work out that donut delivery between them. Yeah, I guess maybe, you know, you know, drive, drive around town, tossing out the apple on the apple side of the donut. It could work. It could work. Yeah. So I, when that, when that's set in stone, we'll, we'll push that out there to make sure everybody is aware of the opportunity. That'll be good. That'll be cool. That'll be cool. So another question we have here, and I know you've probably gotten this in the past and have answered it, but how, in what ways has COVID impacted your daily operations with your team and responding to, to calls? As, as everyone knows, the whole world has changed, you know, because, because, because of, and, and, and we're, we're, we're not immune, immune to that. What, what, what, what it's done for us is we have to take even further steps to, to protect our personnel when we're going to go, we're going out, out on calls. I mean, we're, we're wearing, I mean, we can get a, say a smoke, smoke, smoke, you said, a sector call. And we're, and we're, and we're, we're putting on a mask and clothes and that, and that type, type, type, type, everything. When we go out, go out on inspect inspections, we're wearing all, all the, all the personal protective equipment, equipment, okay. We do it when that, that, that, that type, type of thing. When, when we're going, going out, out, out on the, on the medical calls. We're, one, one of the things, things we'll do is we'll, we'll, we'll start from, from, from a distance. I mean, maintain, any sort of separation to do, to begin our assessment, assessment of, of the patient, unless it's in exigencer, circumstance. But then, you know, and, and we'll talk, we'll talk to the patient, then we'll take steps to protect, protect them. We'll give, give them PV, personal protective equipment. That's to protect them is to protect us at the same, same, same time. Because again, we're only five, five, five, six months into the end to this. And there's still a lot we don't know about, about this. So it may seem that we're, at times, folks might, might think, think, think that we're doing too much to protect ourselves. But I can't, I'm, I, I can't take that, that, that chance with our first, you know, we have not had a single thing, single number of this, of this part, part, part, part, get, get sick, calm down with, with this. So, and that, and that's because we, we began early, early, they didn't take, take, taking those, those, those steps to protect us and the public, that, that we deserve. So that's something that we're proud, proud, we're very, very proud of. Yeah, so I just want to chime in on that because it was really instructive. When we first started meeting as a core team with, with the chief, you know, his first thing was force protection. We have to protect our, the first responders so they can respond to the people who are in need. And he was out there way ahead of other people securing emergency management supplies, PPE, and always scrounging and, you know, begging, borrowing, I won't say stealing, but talking to acquiring MIMA and getting a stockpile. So we were always secure and that he was also responsible for all the town departments. So that included police and DPW, but also LSSE and other places. So he was, you know, everything funneled through his department in terms of acquiring all the emergency management supplies. And he was even getting equipment for the Craig Stores homeless shelter. So it's been really remarkable effort. And, you know, Tim has tremendous contacts throughout the county and throughout the state. And so that's really put the town in good stead for, and it's, it's an ongoing process because we don't know how long this is going to go. And when worse, worse, I think we're pretty well stocked up, Tim, would you say? Yeah, we are, you know, and as you said, it's an ongoing process. And, and it's, it's an adaptive process, because things, you know, we're getting new, new information every day from all, all types of sources. So at times we have, have to adapt how, how, how, how we deal, deal, deal with this. And I like, I like to say we, because I've got this great, great team that I, that I lead. I've got some really, really smart, smart folks working, working here. And, and we're, we're coming, coming, coming up with ways, ways to deal, deal with this. Because really our prime, I guess you call our prime director is that we're going to take care of people. And, you know, and the best way to do that is to protect, protect ourselves, ourselves first, and then we can better serve the folks. So I'm extremely proud of the folks that I, that I work with every day. Another thing I want to bring up was Tuesday, I thought it was really interesting because there were, you know, there was a very short period of time, and there were dozens of calls coming into dispatch, and dozens and dozens, they're stacked up. And so first, you know, a shout out to dispatch because they were triaging these calls. And it's, it's, I don't know, there's four people up there, you know, there's usually one. Yeah, there, there, there were three, and you use usually there's two. And so one is dedicated to working the fire line, one's dedicated to police, and they're communicating. They're talking to DPW, they're shutting down roads. There were fires being reported everywhere. I heard Tim sort of responding himself in his car to one fire to investigate, because that you have to make an assessment. And so it was just a real, it just made me really proud to be part of this team, because you saw dispatch DPW fire, police, assembling resources, making decisions in real time, saying, no, you don't need to go there, go here, we need this road closed, get up there, and like everything was moving around trees were falling down get DPW out there trying to clear the path. But the biggest thing was like in a very, there were like, they said, we've got 25 calls, and we're trying to, and you know, calling ever source and saying, we need these things. It was just a real tour de force, in terms of our emergency and first responders. It was just fascinating to watch it in real time, because I listened to it on the scanner, I don't do anything. I listen, and I drive around and look at things. But, but to see, you know, the chief out there himself, you know, saying, I'll take the one on the road, I'll investigate it, see if it's anything that we really need set of apparatus to or not. And then moving on to the next call, and he clears that one. So it was pretty interesting to pay attention to it. I think we all appreciate that. I know that the taxpayers do in town and the residents, because it really is about commitment to public safety. And it's and we've we've got this public safety, safety team, it's, it's Fire Police, it's B2W, all into dispatch, all working as a team. We had, see, we had trees and wires down on Pine Street. We had trees and wires down and burning on West Palm. We had trees and trees and wires down on West Bay, all at the same time. And, you know, the West, the West Palm or I called was in, resting because we, you know, we, we still had folks that were still in, in, in the, in the, in their homes. And, and, and one of the big, big thing, thing that's stay where you are. Don't, don't go outside that that type of thing. So, so we had signs, signs, signs, simultaneous calls were going on, how, how, how, how, because we were answering calls because of the lack, the lack of power. So, there are all kinds of things going on. But the flow, the flow, flow was great because the team, it's, it's a multi-faceted team that works well together. And there were, there was a domestic violence call that police had to respond to. And, you know, these are different, they have to prioritize these things. There's a woman who is experiencing heart palpitations or something in a car, I heard. And again, checking in on the, all these things. And do you send an ambulance? Where do you position people? And so those calls don't stop coming in. And then there was, and I think, you know, the other thing that we need to credit our partners, because Amherst College and Hampshire College dedicated their, their security forces to help with road closures. And UMass helped with one of the, one of the police calls to support. When you go to a domestic violence call, you need support because you don't know what you're walking into. So it was neat to see all the police forces, all, all the public safety forces stepping up and saying, we got, we can cover Bay Road for you. You guys can go to something else. It was great. It was a, it was a good, good team effort. And, and, you know, on the public side, they heeded, heeded the war warnings and no one got hurt because of the storm. I mean, that's, that's, that's a, that's a big deal, right? Folks will listen and, and did, and did as, as they should to protect themselves. Yeah, I appreciate it. It's huge. It's huge. Go ahead, sorry. I think there's like 25 people still out, Tim. How many in Amherst? Are there a handful? There's a small, there's a hand, hand full out. The, you know, the Western Mass did, did, did okay. I mean, there's still about eight, eight thousand, thousand, thousand customers out in the Western Mass. But here, here, here in town, I think I've last, last I checked about 25 or 30. So that's where they are. Uh, no, I, I, I don't, it's, it's spotty. You're right, right, right, right now. They, they got, they got, they got the main, the main bulk, bulk cleared, cleared, cleared up the, uh, last, last, last night. And now it's just spots, spots, you know, where, say, a tree, tree came, they get down to, so down a line, a line to one, one or two homes and that, so they, so they've got to go to individual homes and, and and tie them back and, and again, so that, that, that type, type of thing. Great. We got a, we got a comment in the room from Linda, um, saying congratulations to Chief Nelson for his foresight and for taking good care of us all. So I wanted to share that. Well, thank you. And, and, you know, and again, I've got to, I've got to say, it's not just me. I'm, I'm, I'm lucky, lucky, lucky to work with, with, with all these folks day in, day out. They're, they're the ones that, they're, they're the boots, boots on, boots on, on the ground. They're the ones that do the heavy, heavy lifting. My, my job is to get, to get them what, what they need and stay out of their way. So I like that. Um, I, we're getting close to our, our 30 minute mark. I know that went by quick. Um, so I want to remind everybody in the room now's your chance if you have a comment to pop into the Q and A pop, um, or a question or simply raise your hand via zoom so we can hear from you. Um, we have a couple minutes left before we, we wrap. So I would encourage you to do that now. We'll give people a chance. Um, and I just want to say I appreciate both Paul and, uh, Chief Nelson mentioned, mentioning, I'm a little biased here, but incorporating crisis communications and DPW into that picture of public safety and first responders because, um, people don't always think of them, but it's essential to, to support fire and police, um, with communications and with the public works. So that's really important to mention. Yes, you are our go to. Okay. Yes. Yes, you are. I was thinking more about our, our dispatchers because they're, they're 24 seven. They are, but you're, but you know, you're big. I mean, again, it's a team, team thing. It's all about the team and everybody brings a skill to the dance and they're, and you know, days, days like, you know, to, to, to the night, that's, that's when we need all those skills. So when you drive down Main Street, you look at the police station. If you look at the top floor and you see some lights on up there, that's our dispatch center and they're there 24 seven and they have a little kitchen up there and they have a little bathroom, but other than that, that they're not allowed to leave there and keeping those folks healthy has been a high priority for us as well. Yeah. I mean, they do a terrific job. Amazing job. So I don't see any hands in the room. Oh wait, let's see. I got a Q and A. Um, okay. So Abby says one of the best ways to keep our first responders safe is to keep infection rates low in our community. We need regulations now to limit gatherings. And Abby, I'm not sure if you're able to potentially attend or make a comment at the meeting on Monday, but you're obviously welcome to attend and send your public comments in if you can't make it live to the town council because I'm sure they would love to hear your opinion on this. So thank you for sharing that. All right. So any any words you want to leave the community with chief that you didn't get to touch on yet? Just again, you know, stay, stay safe. He, he, he the warning that you're gonna hear, hear from time, time of time. It's still summertime. It's still a storm storm stormy time. So just just be just, you know, pay, pay attention and be safe. That's it. And sign up for emergency alerts. Oh yes, I'm sorry. Sign up for emergency alerts. And if people have trouble with that, um, they can get in touch with me at any point too, um, at info at AmherstMA.gov. But again, it's at the bottom of every single one of our web pages. No matter which page you land on, there's a little orange button that says Civic Ready. Click that and you'll be brought to the screen to sign up. Um, so without seeing any other comments or question or hands, um, Paul, did you have any, any parting words? Just the next couple weeks. You got to talk about that? Oh yeah. So, um, we're gonna take a brief hiatus from community chats for the next couple of weeks, um, just to go around people's schedules. Um, so you won't be seeing us in this format for the next couple of weeks. So if you miss us, feel free to send us an email and we'll respond to your questions directly. Um, and then hopefully we'll be back, we'll be back, um, either in this format or a new format when we're back in two weeks. So we'll have more information. We'll put it all out there to everybody to let you know how you can connect with us. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Bull. Thank you, Chief. Thank you. Have a nice day. Thanks, Tim. All right. Bye-bye.