 Good evening everyone and thanks for tuning in tonight. Our emergency response management team has been working non-stop today responding to ongoing rain and flooding throughout the state. As we continue the recovery from this summer's flooding, I know this is the last thing Vermonters want to see right now and especially during the holiday season. So let me say although there will be damage to infrastructure, homes and businesses, we do not expect this to be the same scale as July. That being said, some of the places that were impacted in July are currently experiencing flooding once again. So for them, this is July and it's a real gut punch. So no doubt there will be significant challenges for some which we're responding to and we'll respond in the future as well. Right now that means the state emergency operations center is activated. Swiftwater teams have been staged and the agency of transportation crews are responding to flooded roadways and mudslides and unfortunately it's still raining and coupled with snowmelt due to the elevated temperatures rivers are still rising and we expect them to crest within the next 12 hours or so. So we need Vermonters to follow the advice of local and state officials throughout the night. First, if a road is flooded, don't assume there's a road underneath. So if you encounter one, turn around. Also sign up for VT alerts to stay up to date on road closures and other notifications. Go to VEM.vermont.gov slash Vermont alert. If you're an immediate danger or see someone who is, call 911. I want to reiterate to all Vermonters because I know many are still dealing with this summer's flooding. Although this won't be as wide for many, it won't feel different and will require response and even more recovery. I want to assure you we will be working around the clock with our local and federal partners to make sure our neighbors are safe and I hope you will be doing the same. In a minute, we'll hear updates on our ongoing emergency response from Public Safety Commissioner Jen Morrison on road conditions from Transportation Secretary Joe Flynn and on the status of DMs from Secretary Julie Moore. Also joining us for questions is Emergency Management Director Eric Foren, our urban search and rescue team leader Mike Cannon, as well as my cabinet who are on the line. With that, I'll turn it over to Commissioner Morrison. Thank you Governor. Good evening and thank you for being here. I'd like to start my remarks by acknowledging that for many people this weather event is likely to cause anxiety, fear and some flashbacks to July's devastating floods. I will admit to feeling a bit of these emotions myself. I want to say that what we are experiencing today is dangerous and there will be damages. We just won't know the scope of them until daylight. As the governor said, we are hopeful and there are indications that this weather event will not be as severe as July's floods. We're going to do our best to provide you with timely and accurate information about the conditions around the state. This morning the Department of Public Safety activated the State Emergency Operations Center. Vermont Emergency Management is working closely with our partners at the Agency of Transportation, the National Weather Service, the Urban Search and Rescue Team, local officials, the Agency of Human Services, the Agency of Natural Resources, the Agency of Education, and many other vital partners. Tonight, our top priority will be keeping people safe and evacuating or rescuing those who are in danger. Stay out of flood waters. The water is too cold, it's filled with pollutants that are unhealthy, and the currents are unpredictable. We have staged swift water rescue assets throughout the state. The National Guard is providing high water vehicles to assist with rescues as needed. So far, three people have been rescued from a home in Jamaica and one person was rescued from a vehicle swept away by floodwaters in Waterbury. There is another rescue operation underway as we speak. Additionally, some communities have proactively evacuated occupants of vulnerable properties. We encourage for Monters to heed the advice of local officials or emergency responders and seek higher ground if you are advised to do so. We expect that the high waters will recede by daylight in most areas. Because the peak of this event will happen after dark tonight, I urge everyone to exercise extreme caution tonight. Stay off the roads if you can. Do not drive around barriers or road closure signs. Do not drive into standing water. You know the saying, turn around, don't drown. Please use common sense and air on the side of caution. Clear communication will be key in keeping people safe. If you are in danger or see someone who is, call 911. If you are in need of shelter or other assistance, call 211. I would like to remind local officials that all concerns should be communicated to the State Emergency Operations Center through your local Emergency Management Director. Please stay organized at the local level so that we can accurately track the situation in each community. The State is here to assist when local resources are exhausted. Please communicate early and often if you perceive you need assistance from the State. Related to power outages, we had a spike this morning with nearly 10,000 outages across the State. As of 4 p.m., there were just over 1,100 power outages reported. We are working with the City of Barrie, the Agency of Human Services and the American Red Cross to open a shelter in Barrie at the auditorium as of 5 p.m. tonight. We are also exploring the need to open shelters in other parts of the State. Thank you. I will turn things over to Secretary Julie Moore from the Agency of Natural Resources. Good evening. I wanted to provide a few updates regarding the current status of our flood control facilities on the Winooski River. At Waterbury, at about 8.30 this morning, the floodgates at Waterbury Dam were closed in anticipation of the high water levels in the Winooski River we are seeing currently. As of 4 p.m., water levels in the reservoir were about 7.5 feet above normal, but this is 14 feet below action levels. High peak inflows continue to be observed into the Waterbury Reservoir, and the current peak has exceeded that which was observed during the July 23 event. Current National Weather Service predictions of peak water level in Waterbury are similar to what we saw during the July event, which would again make this about the fourth largest event captured by that reservoir in history. At Wrightsville, again as of 4 p.m., water levels were about 12 feet above normal and rising, but still 39 feet below the spillway, and finally in Eastbury, water levels were roughly 15 feet above normal and rising. We know that water levels in this area are close to that at which Route 302 floods, so urge caution for anyone in the area of that facility, but this is still 20 feet below the spillway elevation. Our dam safety engineers have headed into the field and are inspecting each of the flood control facilities and will be keeping a close eye on them overnight. In addition, staff have reached out to the fire chiefs and incident commanders in Waterbury, Mount Piliar and Barrie to establish communications, and the agency has sent out a flood watch email to all dam owners we have contact information for, as well as speaking directly with leaders at Green Mountain Power and Morrisville Water and Light and have received no reports of incidents for emergency conditions. And with that, I'll turn it over to Secretary Flynn. Thank you. And good evening. I'd first start by saying you probably I think have reported already today Amtrak has suspended operations in Vermont until they're sure the condition of the lines. We are not at this point hearing of any damage on rail, which is good. Cape Bear also suspended flights into the city of Rutland today. As of 4 p.m. today, there are 34 roads across Vermont that are partially closed. I won't read that whole list, but I will read the 15 roads that are fully closed at this point as of 4 p.m. Vermont 11, near 100 in London Dairy. Vermont 100 in Rochester, just north of the village. Vermont 100 in Granville between Mattson Hill and Kennedy Drive. Again in Granville, Vermont 100 from Jeans Road to Buffalo Farm. Vermont 106 in Weathersfield at Vermont 131 into Reading. Vermont 14 in Randolph between South Randolph Road and Kingsbury Road. Vermont 128 in Essex. Vermont 2 in Jonesville near Richmond closed. Route 12A in Roxbury. Vermont 12 in Berlin. Vermont 14 in Hardwick at Bridge 95. US 2 in Marshfield is closed. Vermont 100B in Moortown. A second spot on Vermont 12 in Berlin. Vermont 100 at US 2 in Waterbury. You can come off the interstate, but you can't go any place after that. You can't connect any side roads in Waterbury. On Vermont 108 up near the Spruce Peak, there is a large 48 inch town-owned drainage structure, which we have information has failed. And as a result, there will be a long-term closure at that section of Route 108 in Stowe that began at four o'clock today. At this point, we have no information as to how long that will be. More information will be coming, but suffix it to say it'll be a while. US 2 in St. Johnsbury is closed due to a mud slide. Vermont 122 near US 5 in Lindenville. Vermont 118 in Berkshire between Pearly Road and Privet Hill. And we have heard from 10 towns, and while they have reported some problems at this point, no towns have asked the Agency of Transportation for any assistance. That's the report that I have. Thank you very much, and now I'll turn it back to the Governor. Now open up to questions. Obviously they're still here, and I'm sure they're still aware. General Roy actually lives in Vermont, so I'm sure he's aware, but we have not, I have not communicated with him at this point in time. It's just too early tomorrow. I'm sure that there'll be more discussion about the extent of the damage, and then we'll go from there. But right now it's about life and safety. You mentioned that there's a number that have already been impassioned and staged. What time were they staged yesterday? When did Swift-Walker be staged? They were staged or rolled out this morning at about between 7 and 9 o'clock, and we have five teams out working actively. Another five on standby in the State Urban Search and Rescue team is dispatched probably mid-afternoon, and they have two Swift-Walker teams embedded with them, so we have seven teams out working right now. But normally in an event like this, how much lead time do Swift-Walker rescue teams need? They're getting accustomed to this, unfortunately, so they've done a great job over the years, and they can turn on the dime, so to speak, but let Mike talk about that. Most of the teams are our partner organizations that we share trained individuals with, so for instance like Rescue Inc. Ambulance Service down in Brattleboro, Colchester Technical Rescue, Lindenville Fire Department, just to name a few. So those teams are actually pretty quick to get out the door. So those are usually our first go-to agencies as we did today. And then the Urban Search and Rescue team is a much bigger team. It's 90 people. It's a larger machine, just takes a little bit longer for that to get out the door. So that did not get activated until about 10 or 11 this morning, and they were out the door at about three o'clock this afternoon. It's called a gut punch. Commissioner Morris said we were feeling like a little bit of a flashback here to the summer. Can you just maybe, I heard the same thing from folks in Barrie today. We just got, or people that spoke just got their heat on three days ago, maybe can you just reflect on just the recovery timeline for recovery of this past flood and sort of where we're going for? Yeah, again, we're not going to leave anyone behind. We'll do everything we can to assist them in recovery. But when I saw some of the pictures of London Dairy, for instance, and seeing some of the businesses there, they were impacted in July, being impacted again. Same with Barrie. Barrie Main Street is closed. We know in Montpelier, I saw that the elevated amount of water, I would assume, I don't know for sure, but I would assume that there are some businesses that are impacted in Montpelier as well. So I would like to turn over to Secretary Curley. She's been actively calling some of the organizations and some of the communities that were impacted before to check in on them. Maybe she has an update for Secretary Curley. Yes, thank you, Governor. I have been checking in, and as of right now, what we're hearing is that mostly it's basements that are impacted, but certainly this is devastating to people who are already in a rough spot, but local communities are really stepping up right now. There are volunteer hubs that are activating and there are folks that are out cleaning out sandbags and setting up some pumps in an effort to mitigate the impact as well as trying to get inventory up higher. So certainly if folks can safely help in that area, and as Commissioner Morrison said, please listen to local police and follow the rule of the local authorities because I don't want to encourage people to get out and about if it's not safe to do so, but if there are folks that have some pumps that they can donate, I know that local businesses would be very happy to have those right now to keep their basements pumped out. But again, they're trying to do everything they can to mitigate right now, but as you mentioned, right now we want to keep everybody safe. That's the first and foremost, but we are seeing some businesses impacted at this point. What has this thing done so far to assist local officials? Well, we've activated the SCOC. So they are part of that organization. So I'll let Eric maybe answer that. Yes, thank you. So we did activate the SCOC to a partial activation this morning to provide resources to both state agencies as well as coordinate resource requests from local municipalities. As of now, we haven't had any. We have made a couple assistance with VT alert messaging, which is out for road closures. We've also coordinated their information as to sheltering and other requests as for school closings. So that's really what we've done so far, but we are here for them. And as Commissioner Morrison said, the process is for the local EMDs to get the information from the local individuals and push that up through the Emergency Operations Center to make sure that it's coordinated and then we can provide the best response as quickly as possible. Are you aware of any other evacuations that have taken place in communities other than Moortown? I'm sorry, other evacuations. Other than Moortown? There are some sporadic evacuations that we were hearing third hand. Nothing came into the EOC. We were hearing it through some of the local fire departments that we deal with. So I think that there were some going on that were voluntary, just because river banks were coming up or the water in the river was coming up and getting close to some of the residents. So we really weren't aware of anything beyond that. Were you surprised by the extent of this moment? Was the state prepared for this? Well, we're always prepared. We always have the State Emergency Operations Center and the whole plan in place. But it hit me by surprise. I knew there was going to be an increased elevated amount of rain today and the snow melt was, we knew was going to be a problem. We didn't expect this elevation to the demand or the amount of water that we're seeing right now. A few folks on the line. We'll start with Tom Davis, Compass Vermont. Thanks, Jason. Governor, a lot of the weather reports and weather stations that came out during the day talked about a lot of the impact being mainly in Central Vermont. Can we hear a little bit about how the rest of the state is there? Yeah, I would say this is maybe more widespread than even July in some respects. I'm hearing reports from all over the state. Again, London Dairy in particular, Ludlow, Addison County up north, Caledonia County, and so forth. So I believe when this is over, we'll see a wider range and hopefully it won't be as extreme as July. But time will tell. We'll get through the night and we'll be able to answer that better tomorrow. Thank you, Northern Questions. I appreciate your service on this. Ed Barber, Newport Daily Express. Lexi Krupp, Vermont Public, back to the room. Lexi, it looks like you're muted. We'll try back in a couple of minutes, Lexi, but we'll go back to the room. The shelter in Barry that was set up and that you're looking at other areas to potentially set up the shelters who have you guys been in communications with that you're hopeful could be a potential option for people across the state. That's more widespread So we've opened Barry and I believe the census is currently about 20. Some of those individuals came out of Northfield, but it is open to the public for those in need to go there. Otherwise, the requests are coming from locals, municipalities, and they're going to try to stand up shelters locally for their short term. And then if they go beyond capacity or they need extra resources, they'll reach out to us. But as of now, we have the one regional shelter in Barry. We will be getting into that on probably tomorrow or Wednesday. If we could do that, then I would appreciate it. We have information on that, but I want to make sure that we have it all right. We expect during the night within the next 12 hours, maybe, you know, soon after midnight. But again, Mother Nature plays a role in this as well. It's got to stop raining first. So, but that's our expectation. Do you expect major flooding in Barry in particular? Well, it's flooding now. So I would expect that that would continue again over the next few hours before it starts receding. Should I go back to Lexi one more time? Lexi, feel free to send me an email and we can follow up with you. Any more questions with that? Can you say where the greater danger might be tonight? Is there a specific area that might be in greater danger than in other areas of the state? Again, I'm expecting that we're seeing this all throughout the state. And we're just not hearing back from everyone at this point in time. But for those areas I've seen pictures in the London area, Budlow area, and so forth, and Barry in Montpelier, Waterbury in Richmond, you know, it's somewhat the same as what we saw in July, but it seems to be expanded from my standpoint geographically. So if you see, if you have a neighbor, check in on your neighbors. If you have a business owner who needs some help, please step up, help them, give a helping hand to anyone who might need it. We'll get through this. For monitors are tough and it's part of our DNA and I'm confident, again, regardless of what happens, we'll get through this together. So thank you very much.